University of Chicago sit-ins
Part of the Civil Rights Movement
Bernie Sanders speaks to protesters on January 23, 1962, the first day of the sit-ins
DateJanuary 23 – February 5, 1962
Location
Chicago, Illinois
Caused byRacial segregation in off-campus housing
Parties
Lead figures

Member of CORE

President of UChicago

The University of Chicago sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests at the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois in 1962. The protests were called to end alleged segregation in off-campus university owned residential properties.

Events

Dialogue

Front page of Chicago Maroon on January 17, 1962, with the headline "UC Admits Housing Segregation"

According to Chicago Maroon managing editor Avima Ruder, a staffer at the student paper found a copy of the University budget, and "we discovered that the University owned a lot of segregated apartment buildings...It was really bizarre because our student population at that point was largely white, but there was no segregation, there weren't separate dorms for African American students—if someone had suggested that, people would have been appalled."[1]

Initially foregoing publishing the news, editors gave the apartment addresses to the Student Government, who reached out to the university chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to "conduct six test cases in which African American students attempted and failed to secure apartments in the segregated buildings."[1] Student Government and CORE confronted President George Beadle with their findings and demanded the buildings be desegregated. On January 17, 1962, the Maroon broke the story on the front page of the paper, with the headline, "UC Admits Housing Segregation."[1] Beadle wrote a letter to the paper, agreeing that the university segregation was a problem, emphasized the University's nondiscrimination policy and the difference between on-campus housing, which was open to all, and commercial residential properties acquired by the University, many of which had existing segregation policies. "The only issue on which there is arguable difference of opinion," Beadle wrote, "is the rate at which it is possible to move toward the agreed objective without losing more than is gained."[1]

Protests

George Beadle and Sanders at the CORE meeting in Ida Noyes Hall, February 1962

Frustrated with Beadle's call for "planned, stable integration," CORE activists including Bernie Sanders led a rally at the University of Chicago administration building to protest university president George Beadle's segregated campus housing policy. "We feel it is an intolerable situation when Negro and white students of the university cannot live together in university-owned apartments," Sanders announced at the protest. Sanders and 32 other student activists marched into the building and camped out outside the president's office.

From January 23 to February 5,[2] Sanders and the other civil rights protesters pressured Beadle and the university to form a commission to investigate discrimination.[3] Beadle met with 300 students in the Ida Noyes Hall theater to announce that further sit-ins would be banned and that a committee would be formed to investigate CORE's charges of racial discrimination in University-owned buildings.[4]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Muhlenkamp, Katherine (2012). "Aristotle Schwartz leaves. Malcolm X debates. The Chicago Seven feast. Maroon reporters were there". The Core; College Magazine of the University of Chicago. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  2. ↑ The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California, 1949 - 1967. 2001.
  3. ↑ Craven, Jasper (2015-08-26). "Can Sanders' civil rights experience at U. of C. translate on campaign trail?". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  4. ↑ "The University of Chicago Centennial Catalog". Retrieved 2015-09-10.
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