"Strike!"

"Strike!". Lift Every Voice. , Howard University has a long history of student activism for civil rights, peace, and academic reform. , , Students of the 1930s and '40s protested lynchings nationwide and DC businesses that snubbed African Americans. In the early 1960s students organized sit-ins, registered voters in the South, and discussed pan-African theories. In 1966 university traditions merged with the Black Power movement when students elected the Afro-sporting activist Robin Gregory as Homecoming Queen., The following spring students protested the Vietnam War, charging that black soldiers fought for "freedom they do not have" at home. After students boycotted classes, Howard changed from a requirement to an elective the military (ROTC) training that put many on the path to Vietnam. In March 1968 students demanding a more Afrocentric curriculum seized the Administration Building. Writing to President James M. Nabrit, himself a civil rights icon, students insisted that Howard open to the wider black community, produce "leaders who take pride in their true identity," and become "the center of Afro-American thought." The negotiated settlement gave students more say in curricular and disciplinary issues. One month later a stunned campus united in grief over the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had often spoken on campus., Many graduates continued the struggle. Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Toure) chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and eventually moved to Guinea and worked for pan-African revolution. Student leaders Charlie Cobb and Anthony Gittens co-founded DC's first Afrocentric bookstore, the Drum and Spear. Former theology student Douglas Moore led the Black United Front and helped found the DC Statehood Committee., Captions: , Homecoming Queen Robin Gregory, 1966., Protesters fill the Administration Building hallway, March 1968. At right, students post one of their demands., Student leader Anthony Gittens announces the end of the March protest. From left are trustees Percy Julian, Jr., Richard Hale, Kenneth Clark, and Myles Page, and students Ewart Brown (later premier of Bermuda), Adrienne Mann, Gittens, Michael Harris, and Q.T. Jackson, Jr., Howard students react to Dr. King's assassination, 1968., Howard alumni Douglas Moore, right, and Stokely Carmichael, above.