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Title: "The Real Reasons Behind the Strike"
Creator: Third World Liberation Front
Date Created and/or Issued: 1969
Contributing Institution: UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library
Collection: Third World Strike at University of California, Berkeley collection, 1968-1972
Rights Information: Copyright Unknown
Rights Notes: Copyright status unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owner. In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of gift agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.
Type: text
Identifier: CES ARC 2015/1 Carton 1 Folder 1
CES0008
Subject: Student movements
Student strikes
Third World Liberation Front
Place: Berkeley, Calif.
Source
Location: UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library
Transcription: THE REAL REASONS BEHIND THE STRIKE In may, 1968, the AASU submitted a proposal for a completely autonomous Black Studies Department. Chancellor Heyns agreed to support the idea of Black Studies Department which would be established by Fall, 1969. On Monday, January 13, 1969, the executive committee of Letters and Sciences turned down the proposal for a Black Studies Department. They instead approved a Black Studies Program. The proposal calls for a Department not a Program. The AASU refused to accept a program. Dean Knight, Dean of Letters and Science, on Wednesday, January 15, 1969, overruled the Letters and Science Executive Committee's decision and instead recommended that the AASU have a Department,, but with restrictions: 1. A six (6) man Implementing Committee, and it was mandatory that it included three (3) white members and no students. 2. The Department would not be able to admit Freshman students. We all know that this is not true. Dean Knight felt that Freshmen should only be admitted through normal University channels. However, we all know that this racist University has racist requirements which normally excludes people of color. Moreover, we also know that Freshmen students are admitted to various University Departments. We cannot have a completely autonomous Department if we do not have the power to admit black students to this Department as Freshmen. We cannot truly have the right of self-determination if the Implementing Committee is controlled by Whites. We must have the right to determine our own destiny! On Saturday, January 18th, we decided that we had made a mistake in relying on the administrators to grant us the power of self-determination. We recognized that the racist power structure does not give up power willingly. With collective will, the Third World now stands ready to move on the racist power structure to alleviate the nature of this contradiction. We now stand together to determine the educational hopes of our people. Our Brown, Red and Yellow Brothers recognized that their Black Brothers had been wronged. They recognized that they too, are powerless and therefore must assume control of the levers of power, so that they may determine their own destinies. THE PEOPLE OF COLOR ON THIS CAMPUS, THE AFRO-AMERICAN STUDENT UNION, THE MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDENT COMMITTEE, THE ASIAN-AMERICAN POLITICAL ALLIANCE, AND THE NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN ASSOCIATION NOW FORM THE THIRD WORLD LIBERATION FRONT IN THE STRUGGLE FOR OUR EDUCATIONAL FREEDOM IN THIS RACIST SOCIETY. THE THIRD WORLD LIBERATION FRONT WILL GO ON STRIKE ON WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22. WE WILL CLOSE THE U.C. BERKELEY DOWN UNTIL THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS ARE MET:

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