Though February has not always been Black History Month, a look at the month in past years reveals much about UW-Madison black history.
- Marion Perkins, a noted black sculptor, spoke on \The Negro Artist in America.""
- Campus emphasized Brotherhood Week.
Discrimination dominated the news, as the landlord of Lafayette Noda, a UW-Madison post-doctorate fellow, threatened to evict Noda after he sublet a room to a black graduate student. Furthermore, complaints were filed against Delta Theta Phi, a professional legal fraternity, because it had a discriminatory clause in its national constitution and therefore refused to pledge two black students at UW-Madison.
""We have decided to stick this thing out and see what develops. Johnson [the black student] is staying here."" 'Lafayette Noda
""Intelligent people realize that if America is to win any lasting leadership in the world we must practice the democracy we preach."" 'UW-Madison Professor Walter R. Agard
- The Students' Council on Civil Rights planned to sponsor Malcolm X's visit to campus Feb. 21. Though he planned to speak about the Black Muslim Movement, snow conditions prevented his visit to Madison.
- Hyman Bookbinder, the special assistant to the secretary of commerce in John F. Kennedy's then-current administration, spoke to students about the administration's progress in civil rights.
The Students' Council on Civil Rights openly supported the Congress on Racial Equality's sit-ins at the University of Chicago.
Herbert Block, the nationally syndicated cartoonist for The Washington Post, gave a talk illustrated by his own cartoons. ""Herblock""'s hard-hitting political cartoons attacked the House Un-American Activities Committee and Nixon and supported black voting rights in the South and the United Nations.
""By the time the present high school and college generation reaches the point of leadership in the United States, the problem of Negro access to public facilities of the land should be a thing of the past."" 'George W. Foster, UW-Madison law faculty
""The record of the Kennedy Administration in civil rights is a very good one, but it is not good enough."" 'Hyman Bookbinder
- Black Arts Festival, including Nina Simone in concert and a reading by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, took place.
Students remembered the Black Strike, which resulted in the administration founding the Afro-American Studies Department and actively recruiting minority students. The 1969 week-long strike involved almost 8,000 students and a campus appearance by the Wisconsin National Guard.
A screening of D.W. Griffith's 1915 film ""Birth of a Nation,"" accompanied by a 100-piece orchestra, was cancelled by UW-Madison's music school after members of Madison's NAACP objected to the racist content.
""Black Students at the University of Wisconsin will no longer negotiate for a Black Studies Program. They will have one. And that's that."" 'Black Demands of the Black Strike
""The same racist mind of 1915 remains intact today as seen by the fact that a George Wallace can get 34 percent of the vote in the Wisconsin Primary. And Nixon is starting the Second Reconstruction. It is mandatory that black people keep some sort of vigilance about themselves."" 'Kwame Salter, director of the Afro-American center at UW-Madison, about ""Birth of a Nation""
- Rosa Parks and Lerone Bennette, Jr., senior editor of Ebony magazine, were scheduled to speak (Parks cancelled for personal reasons).
- Vel Phillips, Wisconsin secretary of state and the first woman to graduate from UW-Madison's law school, spoke about the oppression of black women in the United States.
The International Committee Against Racism addressed the UW System Board of Regents, accusing the administration of ""racial bias."" Both the Regents and the InCAR representatives agreed that the ratio of minority students at UW-Madison was too low (5 percent at the time), but the Regents offered no solutions. The InCAR representatives left unsatisfied when their other demands, including the firing of an allegedly racist professor, went unanswered.
Michigan Judge Claudia Morcom spoke in Memorial Union about racial discrimination in the prison system. She said the two factors determining the length of prison time were race and the availability of prison space, and she encouraged active reform of the criminal justice system.
""To me, she personifies what history, not just black history, really is. History is not what you read and write for a grade. History is what you do."" 'Lerone Bennette, about Rosa Parks
""The common mood among black women is that they want to be able to have the freedom and the ability to choose their own lifestyles and to fulfill their desires. Strides have been made but the oppression remains, and we must reach out our hands to all Black women and join together in the struggle."" 'Vel Phillips
- Rev. Charles Williams kicked off the month speaking about the roles of black men in society. The Nefertari African Dancers, high-school students from Milwaukee who performed traditional African dance, also appeared.
- Brothers and Sisters United of LaFollette High School held a Black History Month celebration. The University Gospel Choir and a dance troupe of 45 children from the Broadway-Simpson area performed.
UW-Whitewater's student newspaper, The Royal Purple, ran an ad for the Ku Klux Klan every day in the semester. Editors were forced to accept the ad because of a 1970s court decision preventing the paper from refusing anti-war ads. Protests took place in Madison in response to the KKK's recruitment efforts in Wisconsin.
""I'm not as concerned with the 10 to 200 Klan members as I am with daily racism. We fight every day, not just in a rally once a year."" 'Heather Nelson, co-president of the Black Student Union.
