Student Takeover at Howard University Turns the Tables of History

During the occupation of the Administration Building.

The first major take-over of a college campus in 1968 took place not at Columbia University, but actually at Howard University, the mainly African-American campus located in Washington, D.C.

The four-day takeover of the Administration Building, which ultimately led to the shutdown of the school, took place March 19 through March 23, 1968, and was a response to the university’s threats to expel nearly 40 students accused of disrupting the Charter Day Convocation that took place on March 1st, 1968.

On that day, students who had been mounting a series of protests to demand the resignations of the University President Nasbrit and a more African-American curriculum, jumped the stage while Nasbrit was handing out honorary degrees.  As a result, the event was shut down and 39 students were made subject to disciplinary hearings.

The disruption of the Charter Day event was related to the previous year on March 21st 1967, when students in the BPC rushed onto the stage to protest an Awareness Day lecture by director of the Selective Service, General Lewis B. Hershey.  The students took issue with Hershey's urging Howard students to support the draft.  

In their opening press conference the day following the Hershey incident, BPC members promised “to revolutionize Black universities and to defeat the colonialist administrators who ruled on behalf of the white power structure, and to create Black universities to serve Black people.”

Subsequently, University President Nabrit issued a new policy demanding that all demonstrations or student-sponsored press conferences be controlled and regulated by the administration.  In defiance of this policy, the BPC sponsored prominent draft resisters to speak at Howard, including Muhammad Ali.

In the light of the ongoing struggles of the student organizations at Howard University, it is less surprising that the first take-over of a major college campus took place there.

Student organizers strategizing.

Sources:

"Telling Their Own Story: How Student Newspapers Reported Campus Unrest, 1962-1970," by Armstrong, Kaylene Dial, PhD Univ of Southern Mississippi (2013). Dissertations.

50 Years Later: The Demonstration That Changed Howard And The Legacy It Left,  by Kyra Azore, The Hilltop (31 Mar 2018)