c letter

In the fall of 1967, thirty-one students, or 2% of the class, was black or Puerto Rican.  By 1968, African American students were working with the administration toward a goal with a tagline: 71 by ’71. On May 5, 1971, about twenty five members of the Afro-American Society entered Fanning Hall shortly after midnight for the college’s first takeover. They chained its doors and demanded, in the signed petition above, three things: one, that seventy-one black students enroll by the fall semester.  Two, that a full-time black admissions officer by September 1.  Three, that black students on campus had a housing option where they could live together. Shain agreed. He made Blackstone the campus’ predominantly black dormitory. He also hired a black admissions officer to begin in the Admissions Office in the fall of 1971, with a full class of seventy-five minority students as promised. By 1972, the number of minority students jumped up to a hundred and three.