“Finally, President Knight himself came out and confronted the crowd… He pleaded for more time, for an opportunity to act in different circumstances. ‘This is not the proper atmosphere,’ for answering what he agreed were very serious questions…”
So reported the Duke Chronicle on April 8, 1968, as hundreds of students marched to President Douglas Knight’s house to honor the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and demand that Duke recognize the Local 77 union. In 1968, when those angry, disrespectful students took a stand against a stagnant administration, most people saw their demonstration as a disruptive affront to civil politics. And yet, fifty years later, as we look back on the Duke Silent Vigil, images of the demonstrators plaster our libraries, Forever Duke-sponsored events, and history books. Today, the administration lauds the courage of past student activists, claiming their radical narrative as part of its own history and its own doing.
On Saturday, a coalition of students disrupted another Presidential event. Frustrated with the slow pace of change on campus, we came together—from all corners of campus, all different experiences and perspectives—and promised to fight for each other. After nearly every avenue of traditional change was exhausted, we felt compelled to show up for each other in a tangible way. We showed up in the spirit of the student organizers who pushed for change in 1968, 1979 and 1988.
Like President Knight in 1968, President Price told the crowd of alumni that he will review our platform but “disagrees deeply that this was an appropriate way to handle these issues.”
Crowds of alumni shouted down our students, booed us, cursed at us, told us to “transfer,” and even flipped us off, red in the face. One told my friend to “go back to her country.” To be frank, it was scary as hell.
We understand their general discomfort with our actions. What we did was disruptive—even disrespectful. We ruined what could have been a lovely celebration of some of the wealthiest people in the United States with a reminder of how much work there is to be done. This was no mistake—we wanted to call attention to the problems at hand, to the inequities that creep under the shiny surface of sparkling grass and new glass. We knew that in order to begin a conversation about our demands, we would need to take direct action.
But while we understand the initial rage that we encountered, we don’t understand many of the criticisms. Many people told us that this wasn’t the time or place for such disruption. Like President Price and President Knight before him, they seem to suggest that activism be as convenient as possible—that progress be made in the shadows and in the proper channels. From a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose legacy we celebrate this month, wrote of the dangers of moderates. He explained that this “Wait”—the same “Wait” that we received this weekend—“has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see… that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”
We have spent years trying to access the proper channels. When was the proper time and place for our undocumented peers, who have been advocating for administrative support for decades, to act? When was the proper time for our friends with disabilities, many lacking even a sense of community, to advocate for a physical space on campus? When was the proper time for those of us who work closely with the Durham community—those of us who have been pushing for an end to discriminatory hiring practices for our entire Duke careers—to stand up?
There is no proper time to promote justice. There is only a perception of respectability that attempts a line in the sand, a line separating the acceptable from the “rabble-rousing.” Everybody deserves a Duke that works to protect them, to better them, to challenge them and to understand them. Until such a Duke exists, the proper time to stand with one another is all the time.
Our admonition that Duke is not perfect does not mean that we are not grateful to be a member of this University. Attempts to better one’s community are often met with accusations of disloyalty. But were the students who criticized Duke for being a segregated institution ungrateful and spoiled? Should the Duke women who marched to “Take Back the Night” have transferred if they were so unhappy with their school? James Baldwin once wrote, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” If his logic holds, then we love Duke more than any place in the world, and, exactly for this reason, we feel compelled to criticize it perpetually.
Our Duke experiences have been life-changing. They have given us courage and knowledge and self-awareness—indeed the very courage to take the stage in the first place. But we are lucky. We were given the resources necessary to come to a place like this and to succeed here. We have been in classes with people who inspire and encourage us. And because we love Duke so much, we want others to experience its power—and we don’t want their admission to be determined by whether or not they were wealthy enough to have a parent attend before them. We don’t want our friends—the people at Duke who have taught us most—to carry the burden of suffering from mental illness with little institutional support, to face commonplace hate and bias, or to be raped and see no consequences for their perpetrators.
The People’s State of the University is not about one event, one speaker, one issue. It is not a club predicated on one identity or one experience. Rather, it is an organized, sustained effort to advocate as a collective body. We are not a complete group, and we seek the input of every student, worker, and member of our community. We are not organizing in response to a single moment in time, but rather, creating a past-due coalition of students to protect each other and to protect the future of Duke. Like those students who slept on the quad in 1968, we believe that it is necessary to imagine a better future; and inevitably, to gather the courage to create that future for those to come.
Tinyurl.com/DukePSOTU
The People’s State of the University is a coalition of students fighting for justice across campus.
Aamir Azhar ‘18
Adaír Necalli ‘19
Ann Gehan ‘21
Annie Yang ‘20
Anya Dombrovskaya ‘21
Arilia Frederick ‘20
Bella Smith ‘21
Bryce Cracknell ‘18
Bryn Hammarberg ‘19
Carolena León ‘20
Caroline Waring ‘20
Christine Lee ‘18
Colleen Sharp ‘18
Damary Gutierrez Hernandez ‘ 21
David Conlin ‘21
De’Ja Wood ‘21
Eliza Moreno ‘18
Erica Wang ‘21
Esperanza Hernandez ‘21
Ethan Ready ‘20
Gino Nuzzolillo, ‘20
Hadeel Abdelhy ‘19
Helen Yang ‘19
Ibrahim Butt ‘20
Ivan Robles ‘20
Jaewon Moon ‘20
James Rees ‘19
Jay Pande ‘20
Josie Tarin ‘20
Kendrik Icenhour ‘19
Lance Tran ‘19
Leah Abrams '20
Madelyn Winchester ‘20
Maram Elnagheeb ’20
Michael Gulcicek ‘19
Michelle Li ‘19
Mumbi Kanyogo ‘19
Nicholas Simmons ‘20
Nisha Uppuluri ‘19
Rachel Rubin ‘19
Razan Idris ‘18
Sara Snyder ‘18
Shom Tiwari ‘19
Sydney Roberts ‘19
Trey Walk ‘19
Varun Prasad ‘20
William Bernell ‘19
Yousuf Rehman ‘20
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