Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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5 Afro leaders postponed the planned shutdown of the site and called for a university-wide rally to discuss the police invasion and to organize a student strike until Afro ' s demands had been met. At a second mass meeting Thursday evening, Afro announced new tactics and solicited support for an all-day mill-in at Ballou Hall. Students responded positively to the suggestions and massed in front of Ballou Hall the following morning. Afro instruc ted the students to occupy the offices of key members of the administration who were making decisions on the construction problem and to demand explanations for the massive police invasion and for the continuing refusal of the administration to accede to Afro ' s reasonable demands. After several hours of student-adminis¬ trator confrontations, several administrators, including the president, were ap¬ parently shaken and asked for a meeting with Afro leaders. In a compromise proposal, the administration offered a temporary solution to the demand for twenty per cent minority workers. The administration would hire and maintain on its payroll the necessary number of black construction workers until it could persuade the Volpe Co. to put them on the job. Afro rejected the proposal since there were sufficient jobs already open on the project and since it did not guarantee employment on the site, which is essential for admission to the construction unions. On Monday morning Afro resumed the mill-in at Ballou Hall. The same offices were taken over; attempts were made to meet with the same decision¬ makers. Petty destruction by students was alledged by administrators. That afternoon Afro led supporters from the building and set up a picket line in front of the main entrance to the construction site. Some 250 black and white students carried placards pnd chanted slogans demanding more jobs for blacks and the removal of riot police from campus. After suspending actions on Tuesday (Veteran ' s Day), Afro broadened its attack to include the Volpe Co. On Wednesday morning Afro organized picket¬ ing of Volpe offices in Malden. Afro also decided to escalate the pressure on the administration by disrupting the vital processes of the university. When sup¬ porters returned to campus from picketing that afternoon, Afro announced its decision to seize and hold the university computer center until the adminis¬ tration acceded to Afro ' s demands. Afro led supporters to the computer center and began the obstructive sit-in. Despite pleas from the administration to leave the building, students refused to move from the offices and hallways until police came or the administration yielded to Afro. Several hours later an attorney for the university delivered an offer from the administration. The administration proposed that it would guarantee the im¬ mediate hiring of three black tokens (two workers and a clerk of the works) and that it would give assurances that the remaining numbers of minority workers needed to reach twenty percent would be hired within a two week period. In return Afro should suspend further protest. Afro considered the offer and drafted a Memorandum of Understanding. In the Memorandum, Afro reduced the grace period to one week, accepted the guarantee of jobs, urged that job orders be sent to UCCW, created a monitoring mechanism, and requested the administration begin negotiations with unions for a WDL Training Program. If the administration accepted the Memorandum, Afro would call a one week moratorium on demonstrations. After qualifying and weakening the Memorandum, the administration re¬ submitted the Memorandum to Afro. The Memorandum was accepted by Afro and the seven day moratorium was called. With serious misgivings, Afro ex¬ tended the additional time to the administration to negotiate with the Volpe Co. an end to discrimination against minority workers on the construction project. Afro used the time to thoroughly reassess its tactics and strategy and to plan future actions to escalate pressure on the administration. Afro honored its part of the agreement and did not resume demonstrations. For their part, the administration has yet to fulfill its major obligations. More importantly, the administration has deliberately and repeatedly violated both the letter and the spirit of several provisions of the Memorandum. The adminis¬ tration conspired with the Volpe Co. and the brick mason union on two occasions to fire black masons just before they became eligible to join the union. The administration failed to increase the percentage on minority workers to twenty per cent — the percentage actually dropped during the weeks that followed. Job orders to UCCW for new openings on the project were not seen forthcoming. Consequently, Afro discontinued the moratorium on November 20 . The dispute that occurred on the Tufts campus during the fall of 1969 was an educational experience for students. During those hurly-burly days in November, the younger members of the Tufts Community had to come to grips with one of the most pressing problems on the American scene: racial dis¬ crimination in the construction trades. The actions that were taken by the various groups that were involved in the situation have had many ramifications in the Boston area. The Black students on the Tufts campus learned that much can be ac¬ complished whenthey close ranks to face the common enemy. Not only did the Afro-American students discover that unity among themselves is beneficial, but that by coordinating activities with Black students on other campuses, and with workers back in the community, they appreciably increase their power. The methods of confronting a university administration on the issue of minority hiring were quickly picked up by Black students at other schools. During December, the Organization for Black Unity at Harvard University mounted a number of demonstrations on the issue of minority employment on its campus. Because of the actions of O.B.U., the Harvard administration negotiated a construction contract that required that a substantial number of Blacks had to be hired. Even though this contract is deficient in several areas, it is still a precedent-setting document. Many White students at Tufts realized, for the time, that the administration put monetary things above human values. The Tufts administration, instead of closing down the construction site and thereby demonstrating to the entire world that it supported the struggle against racial discrimination, prefered to continue work on the dormitory while it filed for a declaratory judgement in the courts. According to a number of legal experts, the declaratory judgement stood very little chance in court. Even if it was successful, it would take over two years, by which time the dormitory would have been long completed. When the students. White and Black, tried to take the only effective action, closing down the site, the administration secured the services of two hundred police¬ men, armed with shotguns, clubs, tear gas and dogs. They kept the students off the site, but not the workers. At that moment, it was obvious to everyone that the administration cared more for the dormitory than the well-being of its students. Tufts is noted for the quality of its education in the classroom. During the fall of 1969, the construction site was the scene of the best course in Urban Politics in the Boston area. Daniel Coleman Afro has met with the administration since the moratorium was rescinded. Discussions focused on the treatment of black workers on the site and the lack of progress in negotiating compliance with Volpe Co. Afro also joined the College Construction Coalition in pressing demands concertedly on four uni¬ versities which joined with Tufts in the Inter-University Committee. Investi¬ gation has begun into the construction of the new medical complex by Tufts. The Labor Coordinating Committee