Armed Students Seize Carolina Building

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31975, 30 April 1969, Page 13

Armed Students Seize Carolina Building

(N.Z P. 4 Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, April 29. A group of militant Negro students, armed with knives and guns, seized the administration building at the predominantlyNegro Voorhees College in South Carolina yesterday and refused to send a delegation out to discuss grievances with administrative officials.

In Memphis. Tennessee, more than 100 Negro students were arrested ifor refusing to leave the president’s office at Memphis State University.

At St Louis University, about 25 Negro students occupied the administrative offices of the arts and science departiment, demanding black studies courses and an end to what they termed harassment by campus police. At campuses with longerstanding disruptions, the developments were of a calmer order.

At Harvard, students voted 3222 to 945 against resuming a strike of classes.

The faculty of New York City College voted 152 to 19 to close the campus indefinitely while the president. Mr Buell Gallagher, negotiates with about 100 Negro and Puerto Rican students who seized the south campus last Tuesday. demanding open admission and a separate school. The college has been closed on a day-to-day basis since then. United Press International jsaid that about 75 students took over the Voorhees Col-

lege building and other students looted the cafeteria to take them food.

The president of the 800student college. Dr John Potts, met briefly the students to receive their list of 14 demands, and told reporters that he would not call in police or set a time limit for the students to come out.

Young Negroes with rifles, shotguns and knives could be seen in side windows at the modern, one-storey red brick building.

The wide expanse of glass at the front of the combination building was plastered over with newspapers, posters of Malcolm X, a sign which said "No Viet Cong ever Called me Nigger,” and a sign proclaiming t..e building "The Liberated Malcolm X University.”

A bearded Negro resting a shotgun on his hip took a post in one window and proclaimed that nobody would get “in or out" until the 14 demands, headed by a black studies programme leading to a degree were granted. The militant student protest buffeting university and secondary school campuses this spring is causing a blacklash movement among moderate and conservative students, N.Z.P.A.-Reuter reported.

Young Americans for Freedom, a Right-wing political organisation, announced at the week-end the formation of a coalition of moderate and conservative students to protest against what it calls “outrages committed by Leftist elements on the campuses.” Some observers felt this essentially Rightist movement would attract strong support since it was basing its appeal not on politics or ideologies but on the right of all students to follow their studies without disruption. Other observers, however, said that Left-wing groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) would be little affected by this new opposition, since they had a tactical and organisational edge and a momentum gained from long experience at campus protests. A Columbia University student newspaper editor noted that “S.D.S. has a nucleus of about 250 or 300 students here who are ready and willing to stage a march or take a building whenever called on. The conservative element here just can’t match them for speed and efficiency and it will be a long time before they can.”