In May, 1970 at Washington State University, students led demonstrations against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and challenged university officials to recognize institutional racism as a fundamental problem with the university system. The Black Student Union (BSU), established at WSU in the fall of 1968, spearheaded May protests against racism and, in conjunction with several other radical organizations, presented President Glenn Terrell with eleven demands. Terrell initially rejected the demands which had called for, among other things, a mandatory ten day workshop in the fall to heighten faculty awareness of racism. 3,000 students protested that decision on May 21, 1970. On May 28, 1970, the Resident Instructional Staff (RIS) approved of two racism workshops, one for the fall of 1970 and one for the Spring of 1971. To plan the event, the RIS created the Minority Student Committee on Racism Workshops. To run the committee, Terrell appointed four minority students, Sarah Dennis, Ron Taplin, Rebecca Hobbs, and Rudy Ryser. The students planned to host prominent movement speakers, present movies, and make available printed handouts concerning racism. Although leaders of the BSU and MEChA (a Chicano students' organization) denounced the racism workshops as manifest symbols of university paternalism, the first racism workshop took place on October 7-8, 1970 and attracted 20,000 people. The second was held on March 9-10, 1971, and had a much smaller crowd.
This small collection is made up of print materials and reel-to-reel audio tapes related to racism workshops held by Washington State University in the early 1970s.
Series are organized by origin and type of material, and then filed in a loosely chronological order, with photographs at the end of the print materials.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions may apply.
[Item Description]
Washington State University Racism Workshop Papers and Recordings, 1970-1971 (UA 277)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The print materials in this collection were transferred to MASC in 1980 with WSU News Bureau press releases (UA 1980-07, now processed as Archives 65), and separated from those on July 10, 1981 and retained as UA1981-18. In 2013, six reel-to-reel tapes of uncertain provenance (they were received in the Archives prior to 2008, but apparently never accessioned) were added to the collection.
This collection was processed by Michael Cardinal and University Archivist Mark O'English in October of 2009.
MASC holds a number of items in different collections relating to the Racism Workshops. These collections can be identified by searching the Washington State University repository at
Original posters for each workshop can be found under Resident Instruction Staff
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.