The fire at the Black women’s residence was the last straw. The students ran through Willard Straight Hall yelling “fire!” and scaring everyone out of the building. With the building empty, the students seized control of the campus radio station and made their list of demands clear over the airwaves. They wanted those demands met immediately.
The students had long been petitioning the university administration for an African American studies program with no luck. This time they were not taking no for an answer. When vigilantes from a white fraternity tried to storm Willard Hall to scare Black students, the frat boys were swiftly driven back. As Thomas W. Jones, a participant in the takeover later recalled, “We decided no — it would not be vigilantes who would decide how this would end.”
Determined to retain the upper hand, some Black students left the building and came back with rifles and shotguns. They turned the center of campus into a Black fortress.
Sometimes when our voices aren't being heard, we have to back them up with action. We don’t have to be Ivy League students to engage in brilliant acts of resistance, because that brilliance resides in all of us.