Afro Statement

"The Afro-American Association supports the student strike of Harvard University, and urges students to continue the strike until the issues are satisfactorlly resolved. This action is necessary because the present mechanisms of policy-making at Harvard are totally inadequate. The decision-making power of the Corporation is completely unresponsive to student opposition to its decisions. Furthermore, the recent actions of the Corporation and the Administration display a callous disregard for the safety and lives of this student body.

"This disregard was never more evident than Thursday morning. It is an inescapable conclusion, after the experiences in Chicago, at the Pentagon, at Columbia, and at many other of the nation's universities that the administration's decision to bring in the police endangered the lives of all students. Not only were demonstrators inside University Hall brutalized, but innocent by-standers were also attacked. This has a special significance for us Black students. At least three of our brothers were attacked for no other apparent reason than the color of their skin. None were in the immediate vicinity of University Hall; one in particular who was standing on the steps of Mathews Hall was clubbed repeatedly by a policeman who had lost his original quarry. Let this be clear: we will no longer tolerate these threats, implicit and explicit, upon our lives.

"But it must be remembered that the present disturbance results from the same intransigence that has created numerous disturbances in the past. We support the student strike, not simply because of Thursday's police action, but out of a belief that the university's policy-making process must be restructured. This belief is bolstered by a new development: violation by the university of its agreement to establish a meaningful Afro-American Studies program.

"The University has received national publicity and praise for its liberal policies and its recognition of the needs of Black students. What the University has set forth (in a communique dated April 7) is a highly inadequate Afro-American Studies program, one which ignores creative solutions to the problems of Black people. In conclusion, because of all these development we believe the time has come to reassert our demands for a meaningful Afro-American Studies program, and to urge all students, black and white, to push for reconstructing the Corporation to include members of the entire University community."