Pitt in ’69:
Demonstrations and Activism at the University of Pittsburgh
While history textbooks have memorialized the year 1968 as a period of intense civil unrest seared into US cultural and political memory, at the University of Pittsburgh, anxieties reached a fevered pitch one year later. In 1969, two major demonstrations took place on the Pitt campus: one directly related to the civil rights movement and another in protest of the Vietnam conflict. This is not to say that before that year, Pittwas a sleepy hamlet, while the University of Chicago, Berkeley, and Columbia (among others) were sites of tumult. On the contrary, students and faculty were very active in protests of various kinds. For example, in 1968, an ad published in The Pitt News, the school newspaper, featured the names of over fifty professors who condemned the war and supported draft dodgers. But these sparks of frustration and protest eventually gave way to something literally explosive in 1969.
Figure 1: A protestor marches outside of the Cathedral of Learning
Pitt and Civil Rights
On January 15, 1969, Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, the Black Action Society (BAS, which still exists on campus today) organized a peaceful protest. Thirty black students barricaded themselves in what was then called the “computer room” on the eighth floor of the Cathedral of Learning and conducted a sit-in. At the same time, about seventy students entered Chancellor Posvar’s office and refused to leave until their demands for equality were met. The BAS wanted administrative accountability for promises made to Pitt’s African-American community the previous year. They also hoped to stop the university from purchasing and demolishing residential areas near campus for redevelopment as campus property — property that was largely rented to black students and was much more affordable than other residential areas around campus.
After about two hours, supporters arrived at the Cathedral to bring supplies to those locked inside. They were denied entry by security personnel and additional law enforcement officials were called in. Over the course of the evening, two garbage fires occurred in the Cathedral of Learning: one on the seventeenth floor and one in the basement. The disruptions culminated with a fire-bomb explosion in the Old Engineering Hall, resulting in some $1000 in property damage. It is likely that these dangerous actions were taken to force an ending to the peaceful actions taken by the BAS.
Figure 2: Campus security escort the sit-in participants off of campus.
Near 3 a.m., Chancellor Posvar signed an agreement that ended the sit-in and protesters were peacefully escorted off the campus (Figure 2). He acknowledged that the Pitt administration had been slow to act upon promises and that student protestors would not be punished for their activism. The BAS’s list of initiatives urged that Posvar prioritize the recruitment of black students, faculty, and administrators; oversee the purchase of library materials relevant to the African-American experience; institute a university-wide holiday in honor of MLK’s birthday, excuse students from university obligations on the anniversary of Malcom X’s assassination; and establish a well-funded Center for Black Studies with a director and an assistant.
Not all of these demands were met, but the BAS did succeed in improving black student enrollment and ensuring that a greater number of African Americans were hired as faculty and personnel. Unfortunately, the event also triggered an act of racism in its wake. An unknown person or group calling themselves the “Mafia” spray-painted a death threat against the BAS outside of their office in the Student Union (Figure 3).
Figure 3: The racist vandalism that occurred in the Student Union following the sit-in
Pitt and Vietnam
Later that year, on October 15, 1969, another protest made a deep impression on Pitt students. Jerome Grossman, a political activist, called for a general strike against the Vietnam war. Other leaders pushed for a less-aggressive mass demonstration and so reorganized the event as a “Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam.” Hundreds of people filled public spaces throughout the city (Figure 4). Teach-ins were held at the Community College of Allegheny County, Chatham College, Carlow College, Point Park College, Robert Morris College, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt’s was an all-day affair and drew the largest crowd.
Figure 4: Protests at Point State Park downtown
Participants included faculty and students from Pittsburgh colleges and high schools, community members, Vietnam survivors, retired military officers, religious officials, local and state politicians, and significant figures in Pittsburgh’s civil rights movement. All in all, an estimated 2,500 people gathered on the lawn of the Cathedral of Learning along Forbes Avenue. People gave speeches, testimony, and bands played music. Professor David Cohen of Pitt’s Law School gave a speech about the war and argued for its illegality.
Although the event organizers planned most of the day’s events, some of the Pitt demonstration’s most powerful displays happened quite independently of the organizers. Participants outside of the Cathedral, for example, lowered the flag to half-staff in recognition of those fallen. When a university staff member raised the flag back up the pole, the crowd booed and promptly lowered it again where it remained for the rest of the day. Another unplanned event occurred when drama students from Carnegie Mellon University performed a short piece before the crowd. To the beat of a drum, the students imitated airplanes dropping bombs while others howled and writhed in pain. The action took place to the chant “Americans fight for freedom. Americans kill for peace.” According to accounts in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, they then sang the national anthem, repeating the line “the bombs bursting in air” multiple times to the enthusiastic approval of the crowd.
Other events were canceled. Pitt chemistry professor Wayne Ryback planned to demonstrate the effects of napalm by igniting a sample before the crowd; however, security officials stopped him ahead of his demonstration. As a compromise, Ryback splashed gasoline onto a large white cardboard poster, allowing the liquid to drip onto the ground. He then threw napalm on another, showing how it stuck to the board like glue — an illustration of the chemical’s dangerous potential. Ryback said, “They’re afraid we might burn the lawn of the Cathedral if we use it [napalm] here, but they’re not afraid to use it in Vietnam to kill innocent people.”
Figure 5: Protestors plant crosses in the lawn between the Stephen Foster Memorial and Heinz Chapel
The main event of Pitt’s moratorium was the planting of 135 white crosses in the ground between the Stephen Foster Memorial and Heinz Chapel: one for each Pittsburgher who had died in the war (Figures 5 and 6). In addition, there were two larger crosses representing all others who had died in the conflict and those who would die in the future. Folk protest music was played inside of the Stephen Foster Memorial as people arrived and amplified to reach those outside. The planting of the crosses signaled a space for rumination and silence. Inside of the memorial, a flutist played funeral music as Reverend Robert Woodroofe of Calvary Episcopal Church named 135 victims of the war, while Reverend Thomas Whitcroft of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church listed the casualties to a large crowd standing outside of the memorial.
Figure 6: The large cross amid the smaller crosses making up the “graveyard” outside of Heinz Chapel
For our production of Hair — this great musical of the ‘60s — we reactivate the Charity Randall Theatre inside of the Stephen Foster Memorial as a site for activism. We strive to show college campuses’ historic role in peaceful civil disobedience and Pitt’s role in particular. The brief descriptions above only scratch the surface of Pitt’s history of protest. At the same time, in staging Hair, the events and issues of 2016 have gained new meaning. The theatre is an echo chamber through which the vibrations of history reverberate — may we never forget and continue to march on.
Figure 7: Students attending the Moratorium on Pitt’s campus
Figure 8: A view of the crowd that gathered in the Cathedral lawn along Forbes Avenue
