In 1969, a collective composed primarily of student-of-color student activists agreed to end what remains to this day the longest continuous student strike in the history of the United States. Enlivened, in a time of war and racial terror, by the idea that university resources could be repurposed toward the end of liberation, the strike’s culmination led to the official establishment of the first College of Ethnic Studies. In this talk, I return to the scene of the strike. I want not only to consider its historical significance and the lessons it might offer us today but also to argue that honoring this legacy involves appreciating our distance from it. Our present moment of racial terror, mainstream neofascism, and liberation dreaming needs a different understanding of the relationship between knowledge and power and a new strategy for using higher education for emancipatory purposes.
Nick Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Feminist Studies and Crtical Race & Ethnic Studies, University of California at Santa Cruz.