In celebrating Black History Month at Wesleyan, we seek to commemorate those who came before us. Thus, the story of the Fisk Hall Takeover holds an enormous legacy. This was a moment which would mark a course for diversity, as well as empowering students of color to confront the University Administration and its failure to equally and justly accommodate to all of its student body.

So the story goes:

On the burgeoning morning of Feb. 21, 1969, leaders of Wesleyan’s Afro-American Society, accompanied by students and Middletown residents, marched into Fisk Hall, barricading the doors behind them and calling out, commanding that their voices be heard; in this action, this pioneering group demanded that Wesleyan’s administration sincerely address their concerns and at last attest to their proclaimed commitment to Wesleyan’s black student body; moreover, the students ordered that the 21st of February be forever commemorated as an official holiday in honor of the late and prolific African-American and human rights activist Malcolm X.

It is clear that the Fisk Hall Takeover came to a head as a manifestation of a shifting political and social climate in the United States, throughout the Civil Rights era. Those who participated in the takeover were in fact pushing forward the agendas presented by leaders of the civil rights movement all over the country; and as much as their counterparts in Birmingham, Harlem and Jackson, Mississippi, they were determined to stop the silence of racial injustice and prejudice. In their statement presented to the administration, the participants of the Fisk Hall Takeover wrote:

“In occupying Fisk Hall we seek to dramatically expose the university’s infidelity to its professed goals and to question the sincerity of its commitment to meaningful change. We blaspheme and decry that education which is consonant with one cultural frame of reference to the exclusion of all others. As Black students we recognize the dialectical relationship which exists between the educational system which devalues and dehistoricizes Black people by consciously ignoring the accomplishments and contributions of their forbearers to the American tradition, and the political and social system which rejects and oppresses them by depriving them of their rights as American citizens.”

This testimonial directly challenged Wesleyan administration’s neglect of its black student body and its deficiency in administering the requests that had previously been presented to them by the Afro-American society during the spring semester preceding the takeover. Moreover, the origin of the Fisk Hall Takeover is rooted in the wave of integration of Wesleyan University in the fall of 1967 with the admission of 39 black students. This small group of students would carry the burden of transforming the university, inspiring the tide of diversity at Wesleyan.

Thus, the Fisk Hall Takeover would forever be marked as a moment which incited awareness and shed light on the social injustices facing black students at Wesleyan University. Those students, who that morning became leaders and revolutionaries, would forever be remembered as the Vanguard Class.

We find ourselves now in the year 2007, almost 40 years since the initial admission of the Vanguard Class to Wesleyan University, and 38 years since their ambitious endeavor in confronting social bigotry and injustice. Theirs were the voices of students refusing to be neglected and intolerant of the silence cast upon them; we hold them forever in our thoughts for without them we could not be ourselves here.

This Wednesday, Feb. 21 in combined efforts between Ujamaa, University Relations, X-House and Special Collections and Archives, there will be a Fisk Hall Takeover Vigil beginning at 6:15 in Fisk Hall. The Vigil will host both alumni speakers and students, and will be followed by a reception at Malcolm X-House.