academia in the corporate world as the rutgers newark campus became a paragon of diversity. although some positive results were gained from the meeting with the board of governors, including the hiring of robert culvan and clement, rutgers continues to struggle in enrollment and retention. according to one of the most recent fact books, only 9 of the 167 tenured professors, that would make it 5%, are black women and men on the newark campus. from a total of 5336 admitted first year undergraduate students, 658 are african-american. historians have long grappled with analyzing how individuals and groups perform collective memory work. while commemorative practices they generate and how a cultivated view of the past is politically constructed. nongrowth of a two-year project on the historical construction of identities at rutgers university entitled

"commemorations the politics of national identity" was a collection that considers the role of public commemoration within the formation of collective memory. historian john gillis' chapter presents a useful lens because it explains that identities and memories are not things we think about, but things that we think with. the commemoration as a political process promotes particular interpretations of the past to the public. during the sit-in, the black organization of students put forth a series of demands that outlined black issues regarding student admissions, enrollment, retention and recruitment of faculty. today the university remembers the takeover as a step towards the campus' growing multiracial diversity. in this way the commemoration of conklin hall is a powerful example of the differences between history and memory. the b.o.s. demands have been framed by rutgers newark as a

call toward an open, democratic, color blind environment while the original intent of the negotiations was specifically increase the number of african-american students and faculty on campus. the university has played a major role in the process of shaping the public perception of the protest through domestication of black student radicalism. the university's memory of the takeover and the commemoration which it produced curtails black power radicalism expressed in the conservative difference and perhaps agreeable theme of american idealism, progress, and diversity. as the 40th anniversary approached, they had several decades of framing the movement that began with obvious disregard for the first 30 years followed by the 35th anniversary commemoration which did not include first person reflections of the activists.

by 2009, the grand narrative of conklin hall was forged as a successful black student activism for a multicultural diversity that generated change for years to come. the story of the takeover's aftermath is a tension of conflicting narratives. the progressive narrative in which the university's response to the protest is characterized in terms of social justice and racial cooperation, the redemptive narrative to evoke a sense of progress in which they allows all participants to find themselves on the right side of history, and a toxic narrative about the ongoing racial inequality within rutgers faculty and underrepresentation of newark high school graduates within the student body. the liberation of conklin hall

south to make rutgers recognize its responsibility to the black community by forcing the university to reconcile its identity crisis as a white school in a black city. the city of newark became a contested space in the 1960s, one that had been a vehicle of upward mobility for whites, but offered bleak prospects for its increasing black population. the demand for equality and access to higher education became vital in a city whose job opportunities continued to decline for working class residents while racial tensions depressed the quality of life. rutgers has used it. the university emerged as a hero in the memory of the protest because according to the narrative created by rutgers it was challenged by students and in response became an open and multiracial environment. the collective memory produced through the commemorative process fails to attribute the role of post 1965 immigration

patterns in the current diversity of the student body demographics. it also celebrates the education opportunity fund as an outcome of the protests even though the program was a state initiative that precedes the sit-in and today provides support to many students less than 30% of whom are black. the relationship between history and memory as two different forms of narration essential to the struggle of individuals and communities because historical narrations often shape and transform our understandings of place. the meanings attributed to place in turn can dictate which events are remembered or forgotten. commemoration and sights of memory are plagued by competing claims of moral values and authenticity. memory forgets, eases down and smooths over the contentiousness of the past. in the 2009 commemorative community, all participants agreed on a single collective memory. the '69 liberation is one of the most effective, nonviolent student protests and its legacy created the most diverse university campus for the last

15 years and counting. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> i'll now open the floor for comments and questions. when you're called on, please wait for the boom mike to reach you. let's start in the front row. >> where is the -- >> it's coming your way. right up here in the front row. here he comes. >> i'm deeply embarrassed at how touched i am. i'm reliving my school experience. i was at ohio state, as i told you, when kent state occurred. and i remember it vividly. i still have a lot of anger and resentment. i have no problem assigning guilt. i don't think you order the national guard or allow them to have live ammunition on campus.

so this is, to me, one of the most heinous things when we kill our own students. i think this is terrible. the way in which i have tried to cope with this, not very well, is that i have bought a day, may 4th, at the local radio station and i dedicate it to the lives of the students who were killed that day. but there is an alternative to the way in which del corso and rogue, who i hope are in hell, handled that incident. and that was shown by the president of michigan state university, walter adams. he led the student protest. no national guard were called. no live ammunition. no students were killed. that is leadership that requires courage. that is heroism. all of that was lacking at ohio and kent state.

[ applause ] >> do either of you have a response? let's go to third row, right there. >> first i want to thank you for those remarks because as a political activist and scholar, i have a great deal of trouble with the truth and reconciliation model. but that's another issue. i wanted to make a comment in terms of the student affairs office and a more general comment to the three of you in terms of the historical moment at which interviews are conducted. in terms of student affairs, this was really enlightening and i think it is part of our revisioning of the second way. most of that revisioning is in terms of the activities of women of color. so this is a very different kind of thing i have to tell you on my own campus, cal state long

beach, one of the counselors in student affairs was the most active person in promoting chicano feminism on our campus. you took this model and have these three conceptual points. but i'm wondering if you've looked at the relationship between those conceptions and how you identified people's memories and when the interviews were done. because i think that has undoubtedly changed over time. so rather than just having these as three discreet models or concepts, i think it's really necessary to see for each of these people when those interviews were done. and similarly with rosie's work, i wonder if there were

interviews of the students from the b.o.s. at the time of the commemoration and how they characterized their memories or what happened compared especially to if they were interviewed at the time of the rebellion. >> just a comment. i agree, yeah, it would be wonderful in a way if we could have had sort of a longitudinal process by which we maybe had interviewed folks at the time and then sort of carried that forward every few years, et cetera. unfortunately, we don't have that. but you're exactly right, and that's the job we'll have to do as we work through this project is to think about how these memories have changed and how they've impacted sort of the interconnection between memory

and history. so you're exactly right, yes, i agree. >> i'd also like to respond and thank you for your question. i think what i tried to do in my presentation before i held down the enter button for too long was to really talk about the nuance and the messiness of this and while interviewing the student protesters, some felt that this was a great moment for them and that it allowed them to become leaders later on in the community. one of the members of b.o.s. is now the head of umdnj, which is the major medical university in new jersey and in newark. one of them is also in an administrative role at rutgers university, as well. but there were others that kind of felt that this was a crown that the university really wore without necessarily meeting the demands that were put forth. and that in many ways it was usurped, that this moment of radical protest was really taken on by the university without

changing the real things that needed to be done. and it's more seen in the faculty diversity at rutgers newark. we're really struggling that even when we are able to bring faculty of color into the university, our retention rate isn't great, there's not a great amount of support. the students demanded specific programs of study and those things are just not happening at this time. certainly not from a grant -- certificate granting institution. >> for me, i spent a lot of time in my work thinking about the role of memory because when i started interviewing emily taylor, she was about 85. so there had been 25 to 30 years since she was at the university of kansas. and emily taylor sort of had a persona in kansas. people knew who she was and there was this piece about it. so i took the map of the interviews and i spent a very long time in the archives.

and most of the examples i shared with you actually came out of the archives because i'm not sure my exact interpretation of what happened would be the way any one of the people i interviewed would explain the activities, because i do think there is, as greg talked about, a change in how we talk about things. we start to create a narrative around what it meant and your own personal role in that, which is a very interesting topic, from the point of view of history. you also need to track through the activities from various points of view. and that's where i think archival documents in conversation with oral history are so important because otherwise you get a disjointed sort of view. so thank you for your question. >> let's go right there in front -- dark sweater, yes. you. >> thank you very much. i have two questions about the present.

and one has to do with anthony emperiala. am i pronouncing that right? whom we might call the great white hunter after that beautiful quotation. and that is where he is now and what is he doing. and similarly with governor rhodes, where is he and what is he doing now? >> well, he's dead. >> is that true? >> yes. one thing i'll say about rhodes, not to step on your line, but he lost the senate primary race that tuesday, although it was very close. and he actually got a bump in points based on his rather heavy handed inflammatory reactions. so, yes, so he lost the primary and his governorship ran out and

he kind of faded. >> and then he came back and was governor again. >> oh, he was. >> and he keeps coming back. he wins and stays twice and then by law you have to step away from the governorship after two terms. so he stepped away for four years from '70 to '74. he was reelected again in '74 and again in '82. and he tried to run again later, but by then, his time had sort of passed. so he emerges in the early '60s, and then steps back, at least officially. he's always there as the central figure in ohio republican politics, you might say, and then back again for two more terms in '74 and '82. >> is he still living? >> he is deceased. >> i wanted to respond to your question. the councilman has passed.

the "new york times" has a -- i'll let you read it. but there are a few interesting quotes. but for the liberation of conklin hall during the student takeover of the building, a lot of his goons came to counterprotest on the campus and at some point a giant battery log, i'm sorry, english isn't my first language, was used to try to enter the building. and other student protests and activists surrounded building because they didn't want to become violent and no one died, which is a pretty remarkable thing for this time. but they tried to battery ram the building and enter. >> lady in the green jacket had a question and then to the gentleman behind. and then we will go to you. we'll run a little later because i want to make sure we have time for all the questions. >> two relatively-quick questions.

for kelly, how representative was dean taylor in the second wave movement and on college campuses and also for rosalie, i teach at kane university right outside of newark so i'm really interested in what you're doing. and i'm wondering how the university -- if the university has seen your research and how they've potentially responded to it and what it's like for you to be doing research as a graduate student in the university and critiquing the university. >> well, first, a lot of my next project will be other deans of women. i do not think she was alone in doing this. some deans of women, i think, followed the stereotype, but there were certainly other women at other institutions that were doing similar work. i spent quite a bit of time in the dean of women's archived records as well as in the intercollegiate associate women's students records and some of the ku models were being

sent as best practices across the country for the keys, for the sex education courses. those sorts of things. so it certainly was going on. and some of my work illustrates that you can look at deans of women who were involved with the first wave of the women's movement and then sort of moving these concepts forward on campus in individual waves. so i think some of it depended on the institution and how much latitude that institution gave that particular dean of women. >> i'd like to respond, as well. i know it's hard to get this point across in a short presentation. it is not my attention to vilify anyone or say one side was wrong or one side was right. it was -- my greater point is that it was highly contested at the time. and it seemed very strange to me to attend the commemorative practices and kind of see a very almost disney-like portrayal of what happened.

and i'm really interested in kind of recovering a lot of these voices and really interested in continuing this project and interviewing more of the women who were involved both in the puerto rican student organization and the black student organization. and i told people c-span was recording this, so i'll let you know when i get back about how this goes. >> yes, sir. in the back row. >> quickly, the idea, the same time that was going on at kent, similar was going on in north carolina. at that same time which got little attention, one was civil liberty, one was civil rights. they were combined. the other factor is at this point dr. king becomes very, very vocally anti-vietnam.

and there are some of us who feel that his was related because he was being told -- we knew he was against it earlier. but he was being told your role but he was being told your role is in civil rights, not being anti-war. and i would suggest to all of you young people that you go and get -- for these who are still around, a talk with some of the people in aclu, ada, naa, because they were very much involved in all of these at that time, and then we find that very soon safr those pafter those pr draft movement -- the draft became almost eliminated, and

the present army is primarily voluntary. because no longer -- because parents were not letting their sons go into a war, conflict, that they thoroughly disagreed with. and so they were just boycotting the war itself and that was primarily the kent college operation. that's just my suggestion and my memories that i carry with me at age 92. >> thank you. i think you were talking about the jackson state shootings which happened about a week or so later. and jackson state has been unfairly overlooked in the aftermanning of kent state. aftermath of kent. i know at the annual commemorations at kent -- yeah, two students were killed at jackson. at kent, they always make a point of including jackson state. and former alumni people who

were there. it's interesting you talked about -- thank you. >> lady in the second row. >> yes. thank you. my first question is to kelly. did oral histories include reactions of faculty for and against progressive reforms, and to rosalie, i was looking at your statistics and, you know, the number of students that was enrolled at rutgers. it didn't seem that you know -- you know, that many. so why do you think that -- the upper levels had largely passed away when i started the project with dean taylor, so i was not able to personally talk with those people. the reaction to her projects was

pretty clear in a lot of the written record and certainly you would see sort of gaps. and the chancellor's papers with regard to the keys in 1966, huge sets of files from parents and citizens very, very, very upset with the dean of women. and they were actually linking back to the early '50s senior keys and the dean of women's role. so it was obviously clear that people understood she was pushing this agenda, but, no, i wasn't able to interview any of administrators. i did talk with some of the faculty, and i'd be more than glad to visit with you afterwards, if you would like to. >> i'd like to respond to your question. thank you so much for asking. there are a few stories going on. so at the time when the protests occurred, the community surrounding the school is predominantly a community of color.

and yet the campus is white. and the faculty is white. at the time of this protest, there were about seven students of color campus. most of whom were men. and if we even looked at the physical location of rutgers newark, there was a fence barricading it away from the community and everybody the way the buildings were constructed because people were thinking of riots at the time would be the only way to enter would be from the inside of campus. and i think that while i -- i think it's important that we keep in mind that we have a lot of work that continues to need to be done. eof is actually benefiting more white students than any students of color. we need to kind of keep these things in mind, and while the university has a lot community of outreach, we marsha brown, who was a community activist heading some

of these kind of these outreach moments. i think it would be great for the faculty to go into the high schools in newark and teach a lot of the classes and encourage students who would be the first people in their families to go to college, even the high school graduation rate in newark is very, very low. rather than necessarily just relying on remedial programs for students that can already get in, and i think there's a real class issue that we need to think about. these students need a lot of support. a lot of people are not going qualify for loans and other things to attend rutgers and to pay the tuition that rutgers requires, especially when we consider how our world is becoming more urban and global, and a lot of students now are international students, who are by default paying full tuition. do not have to be subsidized in any way. so i think we need to keep all these things in mind. and while i'm certainly being critical, i think it's just asking that we don't forget, that we don't just wear this

crown of diversity saying we're the most goers dwdiverse campus nation without remembering that there is still a lot of work to be done.. >> we have time for one more question. >> my question is for rosalie. i was struck by one of the slides that you showed that said rutgers white oasis. and it made me think of public space. and i wonder what role did the community play? i know it's a similar question to the last one -- but what role did the community play, and what were their intentions because of the amount of public space that the university held in the neighborhood? in the newark neighborhood? >> absolutely. that's a great question and i think we see these things with columbia university and pretty much anytime an urban campus is built, because in order to create that space, they're essentially knocking down a lot of public housing, and homes of people that have been in the community for a long time,

because, otherwise, you can't really create these sprawling grounds of buildings and residence halls. this is kind of something that's remarkable that i'm sorry i didn't have a chance to talk about in my short presentation. the students were really being mentored by the community activists in newark at the time and these were the same activists that were boycotting umdnj at the time they had a proposal for 125 acres and were talking about the bulldozing of people's homes through urban renewal. these are the same activists boycotting highway construction. and what we know about highway construction in urban space is that it would typically be created through the downtown kind of the heart of the city, and these students were being mentored by a lot of the black panthers community, organizers community, activists. and really these people in the community gave the students the tools that they needed to press upon the demands upon what was called the white empire. somebody mentioned vietnam

earlier. when i interviewed a lot of these activists, they talked about feeling that, you know, that this was urban colonialism, and they really identified with the third world people's movement. >> i want to thank all of our presenters and all of you in the audience for joining us today and for this wonderful discussion. thank you so much. [ applause ] i work a lot now especially on sort of the build of our new site with this younger generation of digital natives, and from their point of view, they feel like old media is insufficiently fact checked. one of the things that drives them crazy is anything that doesn't have a link to the source. >> uh-huh. >> so, actually, being inaccurate with your sourcing is much harder online than it is in print, ba you can just joe check that link right away and i think the internet community keeps you

a lot -- tends to keep you a lot more honest. >> our coverage of a panel on journalism and digital media bip the columbia journalism review was the most watched at the c-span video library with over 20,000 views. watch it online anytime, plus clip portions of the convenient e-mail and blog posts all at c-span.org/videolibrary. when immigrants start to show up in significant numbers, which is somewhat the case in the 1820s and 1830s, but really have much the case in the 1840s and afterwards, they're showing up into a political environment in which they're already qualified to vote as soon as they become citizens. this is to give you the kind of sense of the politics we're talking about. an image from hash harper's weekly just after election time and shows a saloon and a polling place. if you wanted to vote, you can see the doorway all the way in the back. you had to go in there to vote. >> this weekend on lectures in