October 24, 1990
Cultural orgs send memo about space issue, protest plans
After the Black Students’ Alliance (BSA) reclaimed the Mwangi Cultural Center and insufficient accommodations were made by the administration for the other displaced cultural organizations, all of the cultural organizations decided to hold a rally and sit-in in protest. The cultural organizations sent a campus-wide memo asking for community support in resolving the space issue and demanding that all of Lilly Hall, which currently housed both the Mwangi Center and a multitude of administrative offices, be granted to the cultural organizations. They also planned a press conference for that Friday, sent press releases to the media, and reached out to students at other colleges for support. President Dunn said in an interview with the Sophian that the administration already had an architectural plan in the works, although she was not specific about where space would be allocated from. She expressed concern that the protests would damage the College’s image and “make us look like we have racial warfare.” The protest’s date coincided with the trustees’ fall meeting at Smith.
The full Sophian article on the cultural organizations’ planning can be found here (1, 6).
Sophian letters to the editor can be found here and here.
[Last updated on October 31, 2018]