Speaker 1: Coming up on the A Building.
Speaker 2: I saw somebody running toward the administration builder talking about
Speaker 2: there with the lock in that happened to be of
Speaker 2: Saram Jackson.
Speaker 3: Sent Tron died of a heroin overdose, with a lot
Speaker 3: of my buddies in the house when it happened, and
Speaker 3: Moreouse covered all of these things up.
Speaker 1: The A Building, Episode four, Unrest on Campus.
Speaker 4: In the heist, the take is always clear, money, jewelry, gold.
Speaker 5: This may have gone too far, Sam, that's Daddy King.
Speaker 4: We've locked in here and he's not doing too well.
Speaker 6: There is no too far.
Speaker 1: We're here.
Speaker 6: We need action.
Speaker 7: Now, everybody, please, you can't expect us to give in
Speaker 7: to your demands by force.
Speaker 1: Once the students had taken over the boardroom, tension ran high.
Speaker 1: Negotiations were falling apart.
Speaker 4: One of the board members fell, silence struck the boardroom,
Speaker 4: reality sank in. The students were locked in with dick chains,
Speaker 4: and one of the board members was having a medical emergency.
Speaker 1: That board member was Martin Luther King Senior.
Speaker 4: We'll go to this moment a little later, but for now,
Speaker 4: let's flash forward to the twenty first century. Let's go
Speaker 4: to a time of twenty four hour news and social media.
Speaker 4: Let's go to Howard University.
Speaker 8: Well, students who took over the Blackbird Center at Howard
Speaker 8: University last week are still fighting for answers tonight.
Speaker 9: Our university students sit in continues into day five today.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty one, some students begin to share photos
Speaker 4: of poorlythic conditions on campus, mold, rodents, and several other issues.
Speaker 1: That would create a campus wide firestorm that would make
Speaker 1: international news.
Speaker 10: Do we understand that it is not a normal college
Speaker 10: experience to be living with molds and having resperratory issues
Speaker 10: and safety hazards in our living spaces? Stories with videos
Speaker 10: like this one just an example of.
Speaker 6: What students have been living in at Howard University.
Speaker 10: There was a cracks pipe that had been there since
Speaker 10: my mom went to school here and living in these dorms.
Speaker 4: Howard holds a very unique position in higher education. Over
Speaker 4: the years, Howard has been a major center for black
Speaker 4: intellectual and cultural life, producing influential alumnis such as Thurgood Marshall,
Speaker 4: the first Black Subpene Court justice, and Vice president Kamala Harris.
Speaker 4: The university has excelled in law, medicine, business, and the arts.
Speaker 4: Contributing significantly to the civil rights movement and social justice. Today,
Speaker 4: it remains one of the most pristige this HBC used
Speaker 4: in the US, maintaining a strong reputation for academic excellence
Speaker 4: and leadership in diversity.
Speaker 1: In the age of social media. The images went viral
Speaker 1: and the students demanded improvements to their living conditions. These
Speaker 1: protests were a sore spot for an institution very aware
Speaker 1: of its public image.
Speaker 4: Unlike the student uprising at Moorhouse in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 4: Howard was led by a young president, an alumni, a
Speaker 4: leader aware of new technology and the waves of social media.
Speaker 4: Wayne Frederick served Howard University as president from twenty fourteen
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty three. His MS, NBA, and medical degree
Speaker 4: were all earned at Howard. He knows the school inside
Speaker 4: and out. At the time of these protests in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one, he was only forty nine years old.
Speaker 1: Despite this, his initial reaction felt a little old school.
Speaker 1: He released the statement in response to the sit in
Speaker 1: protest at Blackburn Center on campus.
Speaker 5: He writes, there may be areas where we agree to disagree.
Speaker 5: That's the nature of a vibrant community. However, Howard university's
Speaker 5: proud tradition of student protest has never been and can
Speaker 5: never be invoked as a justification for tactics that harm
Speaker 5: our students. The current occupation of the Armour J. Blackburn
Speaker 5: Center is a departure from past norms. There is a
Speaker 5: distinct difference between peaceful protest and freedom of expression and
Speaker 5: the occupation of a university building that impedes operations and
Speaker 5: access to essential services.
Speaker 4: The students responded in kind to the president's letter. They
Speaker 4: felt unheard or even worse chastised. Like the logne the
Speaker 4: Moorhouse in nineteen sixty nine, the students at Howard needed
Speaker 4: another way to draw attention. The students pitch tends outside
Speaker 4: the dorms, a bold, visual and symbolic gesture.
Speaker 11: So, as we said from the beginning, we're not leaving
Speaker 11: until our for demands are met. There's no comprom They're easy.
Speaker 11: You know, no school wants to be protested against. But
Speaker 11: it's not like we're out here because we want hot
Speaker 11: tubs in our dormitories. It's because we want double commisions.
Speaker 10: We are going to be calling for the resignation of
Speaker 10: Wayne Ai frederation.
Speaker 4: These images would draw even more attention to the university.
Speaker 1: President Frederick's attempt to keep the issues in house would backfire,
Speaker 1: and this protest would grow into a national story. Similar
Speaker 1: stories in the national media would travel about the lock
Speaker 1: in at Moorhouse in nineteen sixty nine. A consistent word
Speaker 1: would fill the headlines militant.
Speaker 4: What else is there?
Speaker 6: What else is there? Why are you talking like that?
Speaker 1: We didn't do this?
Speaker 5: They did this. Malcolm is dead, Martin is dead.
Speaker 6: What are we doing?
Speaker 5: What risk are we taking?
Speaker 4: Think about the shoulders we stand on.
Speaker 6: Listen, I understand all that.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're talking about the trustees. We're talking about losing everything.
Speaker 4: You're about to graduate.
Speaker 6: You ready to give up all that?
Speaker 5: Listen to yourself, lose everything more than Malcolm, more than
Speaker 5: doctor King.
Speaker 1: What did they lose? What did their families lose?
Speaker 6: Atlanta is going to.
Speaker 4: Get left behind?
Speaker 5: But the world, the world is going to keep moving
Speaker 5: faster and faster.
Speaker 1: Which side you want to be on, doctor King? Huh?
Speaker 1: But you want to lock up his daddy. Here's doctor
Speaker 1: Cornell West on the legacy of doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speaker 1: Taken from a c SPAN interview with Khalil Gibrad Muhammad.
Speaker 12: He's one of the great moments in the tradition of
Speaker 12: a grand people who, in the face of terror and
Speaker 12: trauma and stigma, was able to generate levels of love
Speaker 12: and vision and unbelievable high quality service to the least
Speaker 12: of these. He is a Christian minister first and foremost.
Speaker 4: That is his calling.
Speaker 12: You and I know that Brother Martin gets deodorized every January.
Speaker 12: He gets sanitized and staillized every classified. Yeah, they said
Speaker 12: to classify the old man with a smile, toys in
Speaker 12: his bag, handing out gifts. Everybody got a smile on
Speaker 12: their face. And the FBI is saying he's the most
Speaker 12: dangerous man in America.
Speaker 4: In the wake of m OK's assassination, this black leader
Speaker 4: who's viewed by the FBI as the most dangerous man
Speaker 4: in America. The More House students were planning their own response.
Speaker 6: The more House board meets after the Spellman one.
Speaker 1: We have to take that one over.
Speaker 3: We'll lock them in and we won't let them out
Speaker 3: until our demands are met.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to Sam and the guys. They're down with it.
Speaker 5: Sam is down.
Speaker 4: Where is he He's coming.
Speaker 6: He's getting the brothers together from Moe Brown. Why do
Speaker 6: you ask no reason?
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the A building. Here's former More House
Speaker 1: alum and civil rights activist James Early on his own
Speaker 1: experience of the Locke In and his relationship with Samuel L.
Speaker 4: Jackson. So take us like this from your point of
Speaker 4: view into the events of the of the lock in.
Speaker 4: So first quick question, did you did you know or
Speaker 4: do you know at that time? Did you know Sam
Speaker 4: Jackson personally?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, Sam, Sam is I think a year
Speaker 3: behind me.
Speaker 6: Okay, this is a subjective read on my let me
Speaker 6: let me Understroy that.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen Sam probably in thirty years, but I'm
Speaker 3: in touch with his major running buddy. So they were
Speaker 3: a year behind me. He and Clark White, doctor Clark White.
Speaker 1: Refa marijuana had hit.
Speaker 6: So you know we rather we were.
Speaker 3: We ran the streets trying to find REFA and and drinking.
Speaker 1: Wine, hanging out on that corner. That's how I know Sam.
Speaker 1: You know we were.
Speaker 3: We were not thuggish, We were just not fully status quo.
Speaker 3: His wife was actually trained as a youngster in the
Speaker 3: arts by Brandis Johnson Wagan, And so I know Sam
Speaker 3: from that context. After the takeover, I think during that
Speaker 3: summer we hung out at the.
Speaker 1: Rat Brown Center. You were telling a story about cars, though,
Speaker 1: is there's something well.
Speaker 6: Sam, let's see Clark White Grizznoid.
Speaker 3: He had a Volkswagen, as I remember, you know, we
Speaker 3: could probably get ten twelve guys to a Volkswagen trying
Speaker 3: to find that reefer, trying to pick up some spell
Speaker 3: mcgirls to go to a house party. You know, some
Speaker 3: guys were get together and rent an apartment, find mattresses,
Speaker 3: take rugs out of the cafeteria and put them on
Speaker 3: the floor. No electricity running sometimes probably no running water.
Speaker 3: We would throw these house parties and whatnot. And so
Speaker 3: I know Sam in that context. And so my only
Speaker 3: engagement with him posts more has really been when he
Speaker 3: hits me up maybe three or four times a year.
Speaker 1: I do a lot on Facebook.
Speaker 3: So he makes a note and he always refers to
Speaker 3: me by my meddle name as Counts. So that's you know,
Speaker 3: Sam went through a deep period of drugs and rehabilitation,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 6: Suspect I don't know this that you know.
Speaker 3: Part of the rehabilitation process is I understand it from drugs,
Speaker 3: is you don't really want to engage with people you
Speaker 3: used to do drugs with and Sam I think has
Speaker 3: a he has a work addiction. You know this guy,
Speaker 3: he is never not working, Yeah, always, I mean he
Speaker 3: is never now And you say, wow, does he do that?
Speaker 3: I mean he has something that that interior motive and
Speaker 3: I think it's probably to fill his life.
Speaker 1: So in that.
Speaker 3: Period, then heroin hits, and fortunately the first time I
Speaker 3: did it it was a dud. And fortunately the second
Speaker 3: time I did it, I realized, Wow, this high is
Speaker 3: something that is so exhilarating that I think I want
Speaker 3: to go as fast as I can in the opposite direction.
Speaker 6: So, you know, I was lucky because Centron.
Speaker 3: Died of a heroin overdose with a lot of my
Speaker 3: buddies in the house when it happened. Somebody took his
Speaker 3: shoes and morehouse covered all of these things up, you know.
Speaker 3: But again, these are indicators of a changing society and
Speaker 3: more House as an institution, as a very Valian institution.
Speaker 3: I don't any way want to undermine the significance.
Speaker 1: And the products, but they were status quo oriented.
Speaker 9: So so tell us like how you first hear about
Speaker 9: the lock in, how you end up in there, and
Speaker 9: what happens when you get in there?
Speaker 1: So I don't know.
Speaker 6: Who mentioned it to me the evening before the takeover.
Speaker 3: I'm not even sure I knew that there was a
Speaker 3: Board of trustees meeting. Somebody says, you know, there's a
Speaker 3: meeting tonight and we're going to go to the board
Speaker 3: and trust see tomorrow. I don't know how they framed it.
Speaker 3: I don't think the word like we're going to go
Speaker 3: take over was there. And the meeting was over at Spelman,
Speaker 3: and I always made my evening rounds at Spelman. You know,
Speaker 3: I had several dormitories I needed to visit. Then I
Speaker 3: had my main squeeze that I needed to finally end up.
Speaker 3: So I went over to the meeting. I left the meeting,
Speaker 3: I know, probably after thirty minutes, and made my rounds.
Speaker 3: The next day I hear, you know, I'm not even
Speaker 3: anticipating or looking forward to this. The next day I
Speaker 3: hear me and they have taken old administration building and
Speaker 3: locked the doors.
Speaker 1: Another former more housealone, Aaron Stephen Brown, recalls how he
Speaker 1: heard about the lock in.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden one day, standing out on the
Speaker 2: campus talking to doctor Whalem Wendle Whalem, I saw somebody
Speaker 2: run by me, running toward the Administration building talking about
Speaker 2: there at the lock in that happened to be a
Speaker 2: Sam Jackson. He was running saying they were lucking in
Speaker 2: people at the Administratives and building. Come on, come on.
Speaker 2: And I had just gotten there shortly, so I wasn't
Speaker 2: taking any chances of getting involved in something that might
Speaker 2: have me kicked out before I got there.
Speaker 4: Good.
Speaker 2: I watched as some people followed and they went down
Speaker 2: to the Administration building and there was that lock in.
Speaker 2: I did know though, that the senior doctor King was
Speaker 2: one of those I was locked in and he wasn't
Speaker 2: having it. He was telling them, you could do what
Speaker 2: you want to, but you're not locking me in. And
Speaker 2: they respected that because out of everybody else, they let
Speaker 2: him go.
Speaker 4: And now back to James Early.
Speaker 3: So my interior evolving self hits another level that I
Speaker 3: had not planned.
Speaker 1: The hit.
Speaker 3: I wesht over, climbed up a tree on that south
Speaker 3: side of the a build, that side that faces the library,
Speaker 3: and there was a tree that ran right up the
Speaker 3: side of the building. I climbed the tree into the
Speaker 3: second floor because the doors had been locked.
Speaker 1: I go in. I'm in the hallway.
Speaker 3: The hallways packed Abdullah Khalai Matt and a few other
Speaker 3: students were inside the conference room with the board.
Speaker 1: And I go in the room.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the A building.
Speaker 1: Here's former More House alum and civil rights activist James Early.
Speaker 3: And I go in the room and Abdullah is running
Speaker 3: Adula Klai Mott, who is a great agitational artor who
Speaker 3: knows a lot of global.
Speaker 6: History and jazz music and all of that, and he.
Speaker 1: Was really browbeating them.
Speaker 3: I can't remember the particulars, but they were like, you know,
Speaker 3: they were like shocked. I remember Daddy King saying, I
Speaker 3: got to get out of here. I have a heart condition,
Speaker 3: and so they ushered him right away. And I remember
Speaker 3: doctor may is just sitting very very quietly. I remember Gloucester,
Speaker 3: you know, it had a just unsettling look on his face.
Speaker 3: I mean it was it was like shocking to them.
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to remember the Merrill Lynch guy. I
Speaker 3: used to know his name. He was on the board.
Speaker 3: He may have been chairman of the president of Merrill
Speaker 3: Lynch at that time. The man James Early is referring
Speaker 3: to here is Charles E. Merrill, co founder of Merrill Lynch.
Speaker 1: He was a big donor to Morehouse.
Speaker 3: Judge Tuttle from the fifth District Court was was on
Speaker 3: that board, Daddy King.
Speaker 1: So there was some real heavy hitters, oh, heavy heavy
Speaker 1: hitters right right, and Abdull I.
Speaker 3: Mean he was beating them to death with rhetoric, and
Speaker 3: you can imagine it was just shocking. I mean, these
Speaker 3: principles in the black community and their white alliances and
Speaker 3: their donors, and no one had ever propped up in
Speaker 3: seen anything like this. And you get then you got
Speaker 3: these students out in the hallway. He's really bombarding this room.
Speaker 3: And I remember that the guy from Merrill Lynch very
Speaker 3: quietly at the end of the first day, I don't know,
Speaker 3: around six thirty seven o'clock in the evening, he takes
Speaker 3: off his suit jacket. He fows it up and puts
Speaker 3: it under the conference table and then gets under the.
Speaker 6: Table and then goes asleep. And the next morning it's
Speaker 6: so surreal.
Speaker 3: I know, it was you know again in the moment,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm twenty one years old.
Speaker 6: You know it was our hearts beating, all right, this.
Speaker 4: Is kind of an open wound was happening.
Speaker 3: And this contextual change going on in society, and I
Speaker 3: think like a lot of young people are certainly trends
Speaker 3: of young people. My anti establishment kind of sentiment. It
Speaker 3: was not like any real formed ideology. It was that
Speaker 3: I didn't fit.
Speaker 6: But the next morning, this guy from Meryl gets up.
Speaker 6: At some point he announces he would.
Speaker 3: Give ten thousand dollars for extudiast department when you went
Speaker 3: in there, because you were a senior.
Speaker 4: Correct. Yeah, so we're talking weeks away from graduation. So
Speaker 4: are you thinking to yourself, Okay, what's the ramification?
Speaker 1: Like, Am I gotta get in trouble for this? No?
Speaker 6: No, no, because I think it was a crowd mentality.
Speaker 3: You know, we're caught up in the wow that they've
Speaker 3: taken over the administration building and you know, some of
Speaker 3: our pizza in there, so let me you know. And
Speaker 3: you know, there were guys making long distance phone calls.
Speaker 3: So it was not a very disciplined organized grouping. On
Speaker 3: that second day, some agreements were written up, I think
Speaker 3: about black studies, and and then this term of exoneration.
Speaker 3: There's another term. It says escaping me. Now I never
Speaker 3: heard the term, so that had never they say that
Speaker 3: they weren't going to punish you.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, no, they didn't say anything.
Speaker 3: It may have been Abdullah came up, Okay, wow, this
Speaker 3: is going to be now.
Speaker 6: Our response to this a punitive response.
Speaker 3: And so this term of impunity or whatever, I forget
Speaker 3: the term we put into the written document. I think
Speaker 3: I sent you a copy of my letter of my suspension.
Speaker 5: Dear mister Early, as a result of your participation in
Speaker 5: the lock in of members of the trustee boards of
Speaker 5: Morehouse College and Atlanta University, along with representatives of the
Speaker 5: Morehouse College Student Government Association on April eighteenth, nineteen nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty nine, the Advisory Committee has taken the following action.
Speaker 5: You are hereby suspended from Morehouse College effective May thirty,
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty nine through May thirty, nineteen seventy. You will
Speaker 5: not be eligible for graduation from Morehouse College until the
Speaker 5: period of your suspension has expired. The members of the
Speaker 5: Advisory Committee sincerely regret that the seriousness of your offense
Speaker 5: made it necessary to take this action, and we trust
Speaker 5: that this action will have a positive influence upon your
Speaker 5: life and will help you build a better future. Sincerely, yours,
Speaker 5: Edward B. William's, Chairman the Advisory Committee, and so.
Speaker 6: The others may have letters, they will all say the
Speaker 6: same thing.
Speaker 1: I suspect we were brought.
Speaker 3: In for punitive evaluation, and I think we were brought
Speaker 3: in in different groups. I don't remember who was in
Speaker 3: there with me, but I do remember Sam William saying
Speaker 3: something to the effect about me, you have to take
Speaker 3: this guy kind of seriously.
Speaker 1: He didn't elaborate.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that was the saving grace of
Speaker 3: that my degree was only suspended for a year, rather
Speaker 3: than I don't know, taking a more drastic measure of
Speaker 3: not conferring a degree on me. One other thing that
Speaker 3: happened to me in the context of this directly tied
Speaker 3: to the takeover.
Speaker 6: My favorite teacher contacted me.
Speaker 3: She says, I have been told that you have to
Speaker 3: take a comprehensive exam.
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of this. She was crying. Oh and
Speaker 1: she she's.
Speaker 6: A tiny, little serious Cuban scholar.
Speaker 3: She was she was torn, and so I went in
Speaker 3: in a drug stupor.
Speaker 6: And she gave me this comprehensive exam. It took like
Speaker 6: three hours or so.
Speaker 3: As I recall, I was never told I needed I
Speaker 3: would have to take a comprehensive exam.
Speaker 1: And the way she called me.
Speaker 6: It suggested that neither did she.
Speaker 1: Know that, but somehow they had. Anyway, how'd you do
Speaker 1: on the exam?
Speaker 6: I probably didn't do very well on the exam, would
Speaker 6: be my guest.
Speaker 3: But I don't think it was I don't think it
Speaker 3: was probably even a question of how that was to
Speaker 3: be evaluated.
Speaker 1: I think it was.
Speaker 3: I suspect it was a kind of punitive, and I
Speaker 3: think I probably told you all I can tell you
Speaker 3: about what happened inside and what I'm aware of what
Speaker 3: happened afterwards. I heard that students were banned, that letters
Speaker 3: were sent out to Black College's banning students from transferring
Speaker 3: from transferring.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I don't know.
Speaker 3: In the case of Sam, I think they went back
Speaker 3: to Morehouse.
Speaker 1: Maybe two years later. Years later, Yeah, he went back
Speaker 1: to Morehouse. It was, And because what happened to the
Speaker 1: students who were expelled was that they then had to
Speaker 1: just reapply and they were admitted back to the institution.
Speaker 1: So some it was a year, some it was two years. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 6: And because then I go off to the ends.
Speaker 3: Of the Black World and and to that arena, and
Speaker 3: then you know, off to Howard and I'm on another trajectory,
Speaker 3: but that trajectory is of my personal and professional life
Speaker 3: is tied directly to the takeover. And then Vincent Harding,
Speaker 3: hearing that I needed a job, he sent a message
Speaker 3: to me saying, come see me.
Speaker 6: I have a job for you at the Martin Luther
Speaker 6: King documentation project. And I got around these black intellectuals.
Speaker 6: So there is a tie.
Speaker 1: But I you know, I'm not really.
Speaker 3: A part of the the Moorhouse community per se.
Speaker 1: Just as James Early described the change in his life
Speaker 1: through this protest, many students down the years have had
Speaker 1: the same experience standing up for something worth fighting for.
Speaker 4: In twenty fifteen, the University of Missouri found itself at
Speaker 4: the center of a racial controversy. The protests were fueled
Speaker 4: by incidents on campus in funeral dissatisfaction with the university's response.
Speaker 1: Black students reported multiple racist incidents on campus, including racial
Speaker 1: slurs and cyberbullying. This would lead to the creation of
Speaker 1: Concerned Student nineteen fifty, a student activist group named after
Speaker 1: the year Massoo first admitted black students. They demanded university
Speaker 1: leadership take action against racism.
Speaker 4: The campus issues would reach a fever pick from the
Speaker 4: entire football team announced they would not practice or play
Speaker 4: until president Timothy Wolfe resigned from this post.
Speaker 3: Thirty African American football players at the University of Missouri
Speaker 3: say they're on strike and they won't play again until
Speaker 3: the university's president, Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed.
Speaker 13: The move thrust Any into the national spotlight.
Speaker 8: This morning's Board of Curators meetings started with wolf at
Speaker 8: the podium, collet it quits. He used my resignation to
Speaker 8: heal and start talking again, to make the change is necessary,
Speaker 8: and let's focus on changing what we can change today
Speaker 8: and in the future.
Speaker 14: President of the university lost his job. That's certainly not
Speaker 14: a cause for celebration. It's sad that it had to
Speaker 14: come to this, but it was necessary. He had to go,
Speaker 14: and he had to go, ladies and gentlemen, because as
Speaker 14: the president of a university, of an institution for higher learning,
Speaker 14: there were problems that obviously existed at this university, and
Speaker 14: you exercised the dereliction of duty because you weren't on
Speaker 14: top of these issues, and when it was brought to
Speaker 14: your attention, you appeared to be so lackadaisical about it.
Speaker 14: In the minds of those who had brought it to
Speaker 14: your attention than an individual by the name of Jonathan
Speaker 14: Butler decided that he would protest by refusing to eat
Speaker 14: until you were dismissed.
Speaker 1: Or you exited your post.
Speaker 14: That a university football team with at least thirty two
Speaker 14: African Americans decided, with the support of their coaches, to
Speaker 14: protest and join this group Concerned Student nineteen fifty.
Speaker 4: This brought international attention to Columbia, Missouri. The protest became
Speaker 4: much bigger than a single moment back in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 4: The students of Morehouse and Spelman felt exactly the same way.
Speaker 15: Right now, as a student body president, I am meeting
Speaker 15: with students. We are discussing what in fact, trying to
Speaker 15: take the situation out of the confused state. We're trying
Speaker 15: to discover what an fact all the things that we want.
Speaker 15: There was a lot of mixed feeling going on, you know,
Speaker 15: in fact, there were many students who desired change, who
Speaker 15: didn't felt that the right way was being used to
Speaker 15: get these changes, et cetera. Were right now sitting down
Speaker 15: and we're talking. We're talking about some of the things
Speaker 15: that we want.
Speaker 4: The board members are now trapped in the room. Patience
Speaker 4: is weren't things the students weren't answers, But what are
Speaker 4: their demands?
Speaker 5: We need to be unified as one school. They don't
Speaker 5: even have black studies at Morehouse.
Speaker 7: Listen, listen, please, we can work together. I understand what
Speaker 7: you're trying to say. These demands you learn these ideas
Speaker 7: from my son Martin. They're not unreasonable, but we can't
Speaker 7: give in to them. This is not the way to
Speaker 7: handle this. There is another way.
Speaker 4: The moment would extend far beyond the students in the boardroom.
Speaker 4: Hundreds of students assembled outside of Harkness Hall to show solidarity,
Speaker 4: and the moment would continue to grow.
Speaker 1: MLKA University was tagged all over campus with white graffiti.
Speaker 1: They called themselves the Concerned Students. This simple label would
Speaker 1: be a far cry from the militant label that would
Speaker 1: be plastered on headlines all over the country.
Speaker 4: These board meetings were generally pretty standard for Morehouse President
Speaker 4: Hugh Gloucester. He was only two years since his twenty
Speaker 4: years of service as president during the lock in. He
Speaker 4: was the seventh president in the history of Morehouse College
Speaker 4: and would be responsible for establishing the Morehouse School of
Speaker 4: Medicine but in this day, at this moment, he was
Speaker 4: offering his resignation.
Speaker 5: Doctor Gloucester submitted his resignation as president of Morehouse College,
Speaker 5: effective on a day to be agreed upon by the
Speaker 5: board in himself, because he would not participate in a
Speaker 5: meeting in which members of the Board of Trustees are
Speaker 5: confined in this conference room by force and I was
Speaker 5: subjected to insult and intimidation. He said that he would
Speaker 5: not sign any document or vote on any motion presented
Speaker 5: in such a meeting, and that he would not be
Speaker 5: a party to concessions made under duress. After reading his
Speaker 5: letter to the board, Doctor Gloucester went on the balcony
Speaker 5: and read it to Morehouse students, who once more were
Speaker 5: dissuaded from entering the building by force.
Speaker 4: In this moment, in nineteen sixty nine, Atlanta had become
Speaker 4: the epicenter of a cultural shift. The impact of this
Speaker 4: locking will be felt for decades. More House was more
Speaker 4: than a stage. It was a battlefield, a battlefield of ideas.
Speaker 4: You should get some sleep. Sleep feels like I haven't
Speaker 4: slept in ages.
Speaker 6: Well, everything changes tomorrow.
Speaker 4: You scared?
Speaker 1: Terrified?
Speaker 4: You? Okay? Good? Glad I ain't the only one no
Speaker 4: turning back now.
Speaker 1: You're not.
Speaker 4: Been singing Yeah the old Morehouse.
Speaker 1: I hope I feel that way tomorrow night.
Speaker 5: Spellman Morehouse will feel this way forever, no matter what
Speaker 5: happens tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Next time on the A Building.
Speaker 6: We have broken the status, but we've changed.
Speaker 13: So that's one of the reasons why our winds, our
Speaker 13: protests have created this atmosphere right now, to take away
Speaker 13: our history, to take away everything from us, because we've
Speaker 13: won too much.
Speaker 6: In the eyes.
Speaker 14: I really hope that we can still address social ills together.
Speaker 1: The A Building is produced by Imagine Audio for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It is written and hosted by me Hans Charles and
Speaker 1: my co host menelec La Mumba.
Speaker 4: It is executive produced by Karl Welker and Nathan Klope,
Speaker 4: me Mandelich, Wlamomba, and Hans Charles.
Speaker 1: Executive producers at iHeart Podcasts are Katrina Norville and Nikki Torre.
Speaker 1: Marketing lead is David Wasserman.
Speaker 4: It is produced, directed, and edited by Timothy Fernarra with
Speaker 4: producer John Asanti, Sound design and music by Alloy.
Speaker 1: Tracks, and special thanks to April Ryan, Doctor, Elia Davis,
Speaker 1: Kim Feci Ada Bobby know and James Early. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and review the
Speaker 1: A Building on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.