In May, 1970 Washington State University students organized a university-wide student strike, making a list of eleven demands with the goal of “eliminating racism from our institution.” Involved student organizations included the Black Student Union (BSU), Chicano student organization (MeCHA), Women’s Liberation Front (WLF), and Young Socialist Alliance (YSA). President Glenn Terrell initially rejected the demands, but eventually published a response which included a mandatory ten day workshop for 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 (For materials from and about the racism workshops, see UA 277). The first racism workshop took place on October 7-8, 1970 and attracted 20,000 people. Protests continued in the spring of 1971, when the Graduate Student Association (GSA) initiated a referendum to protest a rise in student fees to pay for the rebuilding of Rogers Stadium. Additionally, the campus group Citizen's Mobilization Committee to End the War began organizing demonstrations against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War during the spring of 1970, and led events like “Project Marshmallow,” peace marches, bread boycotts, and a campus-wide student moratorium against the conflict in Southeast Asia in the spring semester, 1972.
The collection consists primarily of leaflets, handouts, newsletter, and similar ephemeral publications created and distributed on the Washington State University campus by political activists between 1970 and 1972. A few newspaper clippings and official university statements are also included.
This small collection has been organized into five folders based on subject and format; the five folders are organized chronologically, and the materials within each folder are in a loose chronological order.
Select material from this collection has been digitized and is available online as part of
the
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright may apply.
[Item Description]
Washington State Uuniversity Student Protests Ephemera, 1970-1972 (UA 315)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The materials in this collection were compiled from two vertical files (1307 and 2325) compiled at the WSU Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) in the early 1970s. They were combined and processed in February, 2012.
This collection was processed by Shawna Herzog.
MASC also holds a number of items relating to the student protests, including but not limited to:
Washington State University Racism Workshop Papers and Recordings, 1970-1971
Washington State University's Board of Regents President, Harold Romberg, Protest Papers, 1970
Barbara J. Sibley Student Activism Collection, 1969-1973
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.