In honor of Black History Month, The Post takes a look into OU's past, which includes plenty of protests regarding racial inequality on campus.
A crowd of 200 black students gathered outside Cutler Hall on a spring day in 1969 to support a Black Studies Institute on campus, for which they spent years advocating.
The students had previously protested and stormed former Ohio University President Vernon Alden’s office with a list of demands, which included what is now the university’s African American Studies program.
In recent months students have said, in this period of heightened racial tension in the nation, that it’s necessary to advocate for change when it comes to race-related issues on campus.
Student organizations such as OU Student Union and New Black Life Action Collation have localized these issues, holding multiple protests centered on police brutality.
“OU has always been a campus of activism,” said Winsome Chunnu-Brayda, associate director of the Multicultural Center. “You put that work in so people can see your passion and begin to understand why it’s important.”
Bill Kimok, university archivist and records manager, said students do not realize the staggering amount of protesting regarding racial equality throughout OU’s history.
Students once acknowledged restaurants in the Athens area that refused to serve black people in 1944.
Students asked restaurant owners for an explanation for their refusal; the owners cited multiple reasons, including that they feared riots by other white patrons, according to a previous Post report.
“I don’t think you see nearly as much activism on campus anymore,” Kimok said. “The ’60s were an explosion of this.”
It was nearly impossible for black students to lease a house in Athens until the university forced local landlords in 1962 not to discriminate against “race, color or creed.”
Articles surfaced in 1963 Post editions that addressed white and black students living together, with headlines such as, “Integrated dorm rooms broaden student outlook” and “Negro, white roommates ‘experience few snags.’ ”
Some black students still feel as if some white students on campus are apprehensive about sharing a dorm room.
“When we first enroll to OU, you log into your housing and they assign you roommates,” said Shambrion Treadwell, a senior studying dance and president of the NAACP chapter at OU. “They add you to Facebook, find out you’re black and then they drop out of your room real quick. This doesn’t happen for all people who switch rooms, but that’s majority from the stories I’ve heard.”
Treadwell said she’s experienced this when she was in a quad and knows a woman whose roommate said she could not room with her because she was black.
“Her mother didn’t want her to room with a black student,” Treadwell said. “It’s not necessarily the student’s fault because they may have never been around minority students before coming here.”
OU students and administrators have been working through concerns about the campus’ race relations.
University officials allowed students to stay in Baker, during the “Occupy Baker” protest, beyond closing time to brainstorm ways to provide minorities with more opportunities on campus. The university has also held a “conversation hour” on race, inviting the campus to gather and discuss possible actions to solve students’ grievances.
“One of the things I’m really proud of that came out of ‘Occupy Baker’ was the idea for a Culture Competency class next fall,” she said.
Administrators and students are working out the details for the course.
Perseverance is key even when it seems as if the cause is not breaking ground, Chunnu-Brayda said.
New BLAC recently organized a memorial and cardboard graveyard to recognize the black individuals killed due to police brutality. Racial inequality still requires combatting on campus, said Ryan Powers, a member of OU’s Student Union.
“I think diversity is obviously important and the university should do everything it can for proper representation for people of color,” Powers said. “The Student Union circles for the right of students in a participating and active manner; that extends to minority struggles as well.”
Chunnu-Brayda said activism needs a defined, strong direction to be successful.
“(In the past), many times those people could have given up and they didn’t,” she said. “At the end of the day what you’re looking for is some sort of result. We can’t just be protesting just to protest.”
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