50 years after black UW-Madison students demanded several changes to campus during a strike, the Wisconsin Black Student Union recreated the movement.
In 1969, BSU President Rashid Rashad led the strike aimed at calling on the university to make 13 changes to be made to the campus. Some of their most notable demands were the creation of a Black Student Center and an African American Studies Department. The strike lasted for two weeks as over 10,000 students protested in support of their Black peers.
The march tonight began at the top of Bascom Hill with a powerful speech from Jared Bittle, a member of the WBSU, about the history of the strike.
Jaylah Batemlan, a UW-Madison freshman at the march said, “We should never stop or be comfortable with what we have as of today., I feel like we should always push for more because we deserve it as black people on this campus,.” UW-Madison freshman Jaylah Batemlan said.
At the time of the original strike, there were only 90 black students enrolled at UW-Madison. In the past 50 years, the black student population has risen to 862, only two percent of the student population as a whole.
The strike succeeded in creating the African American Studies Department. Since, according to the BSU, it has educated a large majority of the student population on African American history. .
Madison Mayor Paul Soglin attended the march, and was an active member in the strikes. He said the march “caught everyone by surprise,” as the political focus at the time was on anti-war demonstrations.
WBSU President Tashiana Lipscomb spoke about how difficult it can be to celebrate the strides made in the past few decades and “those who came before us,” while recognizing that there is still so much left to do.
“I feel like there has been a lot of progress, but I don't want that to be confused with just being okay with what we have,” said Batelman.
