Student Activism II

Monday Night – November 22, 1968

As part of the rise of student activism in the 1960s with lightning rod issues such as the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, students of color demanded equal treatment. St. Cloud State had to change and adapt.

November 22, 1968

Before 1968, students of color made a very small percentage of total enrollment. In response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, campus increased efforts to recruit and attract these students. Black students felt it was not enough and acted by occupying President Robert Wick’s Whitney House office in November 1968.

B-SURE students occupy President Robert Wick's office, November 1968

Their demands included recruitment of more students and faculty of color, an accurate teaching of Black history, and a cultural center. Although some students mocked their demands, President Wick agreed to many of them. The Minority Cultural Center, St. Cloud State’s first center for students of color, opened in Shoemaker Hall in 1972.

MEChA strike site, May 1995

In 1995, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan (M.E.Ch.A.) student organization held a hunger strike on campus. They, too, had a list of demands, including the removal of table grapes, more recruitment of people of color, establishment of a multicultural resource center in the library, and creation of a Chicano/a Studies program. These demands were agreed to by the university – but many consider them not fully realized.

Student Jerry Lopez at MEChA hunger strike site, May 1995