Live Breaking News & Updates on Samuel Proctor Oral History Program Digital Collection

UF Alumni Reflect On Black Thursday And The Black Student Experience
By Audrey Mostek
April 14, 2021
Betty Stewart-Fullwood was among the 100-plus Black students who left the University of Florida after the administration’s response to their demands for better treatment in 1971.
“It was the principle of the matter,” Stewart-Fullwood recalled Tuesday during a virtual panel discussion commemorating the 50th anniversary of the campus protests commonly known as Black Thursday. “I needed to walk out, even though I came back.”
Three times on Thursday, April 15, 1971, groups of Black Student Union members entered Tigert Hall in an attempt to speak with then-UF President Stephen C. O’Connell. The BSU wanted, among other things, UF to enroll and hire Black students and faculty, create a minority affairs department, and “the fair and equal treatment of our Black brothers and sisters” on staff at the university. ....

United States , University Of Florida , Stephen Oconnell , Betty Stewart Fullwood , Janice Hobdy , Joseph Mccloud , Alana Gomez , Paul Ortiz , Audrey Mostek , Tigert Hall , Andre Everette , Kevin Moran , Jeraldine Williams , Stephenc Oconnell , Turlington Plaza , Uf Black Affairs , Institute Of Black Culture , Institute For Black Culture , Samuel Proctor Oral History Program , Matheson History Museum In Gainesville , Uf Library Digital Collections , Uf Library Digital , Uf African American Studies Program , Student Union , Samuel Proctor Oral History Program Digital Collection , University Of Massachusetts ,