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Spirit of student-led protests lives on

Posted on October 20, 2011October 20, 2011 by Staff

Katya Roytburd addresses the crowd at Saturday’s Occupy Chapel Hill demonstration at Peace and Justice Plaza. Photo by Alicia Stemper

By Kevin Collins and Taylor Sisk
Staff Writers
“This past year has been one of controversy for the University of North Carolina – one in which its existence as a free institution of learning has been questioned,” the editorial staff of the 1966 Yackety Yack, the UNC yearbook, wrote. “There were many who felt that the University and its citizens should devote themselves to the rote memorization of bland textbook material … and there were also those who felt that U.N.C. was a malignancy to be destroyed.”

That year, the university was challenged mightily, by its students, and by faculty, to live up to the ideal of a hallowed ground for thought and expression.

The Speaker Ban Law, which dictated who could and couldn’t speak on university system campuses, was challenged, and was overturned in 1968; protest of the war in Vietnam was heightening and many in the university community were taking a stand for civil rights.

In a ceremony attended by some 250 people last Wednesday afternoon, on the occasion of UNC’s University Day, a memorial marker was placed on the low stone wall between Franklin Street and McCorkle Place to honor those students who took action against the Speaker Ban Law at a time when the university was caught, as Chancellor Holden Thorp put it in his address to the crowd, “between the forces of tradition and the forces of change.”

The ceremony focused heavily on the collaborative efforts of students, including then-Student Body President Paul Dickson III, to organize against the law. Thorp, UNC system President Tom Ross and UNC Board of Trustees Chair Wade Hargrove urged current students to learn from the example of their predecessors by being proactive and working together to initiate change.

Today’s Carolina students may not have a watershed moment, but the activist spirit is alive and well on campus. Student Body President Mary Cooper was among the speakers at last week’s ceremony; she stressed the importance of student activism and said the efforts to overturn the law represent what students can accomplish by working together.

“Being able to speak here today means a lot because of the history of [the anti-speaker ban effort] and what it means for student leadership and involvement on campus,” Cooper said in a post-ceremony interview. “What these students did back in the ’60s is an example of what student government can do and how students can make a change. It’s not just about student government; it’s about all students.”

Cooper said she had these principles in mind when she lobbied the N.C. General Assembly in June for smaller budget cuts and more funding for the UNC system. She said Dickson’s leadership has inspired her to use her position to facilitate positive change.

“What I learned is how he worked with other student leaders,” Cooper said. “You’re always working in conjunction with others.”

A loose coalition that included Students for a Democratic Society, student government and the Daily Tar Heel joined forces in 1966 to protect the freedom “to listen, to think and to decide for themselves,” Robert Dickson, Paul Dickson’s brother and publisher of The Carrboro Citizen told those assembled.

The battle continues.

‘A time of great change’
Alvis Dunn earned his Ph.D. at UNC and is now chair of the history department at Guilford College. He teaches about the Speaker Ban in a class called “The Changing Face of the South: The Demographic History of North Carolina,” and frames the discussion as “very much a civil rights moment” in a time of great change in the South, as the world intruded on tradition.

Paul Dickson cautioned that if the authorities didn’t take action to end the Speaker Ban Law, the students would “ripple the waters.”

In fact, they made great waves, which today ripple on the UNC campus.

Dunn points out that the draft did much to galvanize students in the ’60s. Students today don’t face as imposing a threat to their autonomy. But they’re connecting the dots on social-justice issues, recognizing that they too are living in a civil rights moment. And they’re fully aware there’s strength in numbers.

UNC senior Laurel Ashton is an example of the deep-rooted activist tradition in Chapel Hill. She’s co-chair of Student Action with Workers, an organization dedicated to mobilizing support for labor solidarity claims, and a member of the Chapel Hill/Carrboro NAACP. Ashton has made her voice heard on a number of local issues.

“As a student, worker and resident of one of the most anti-union states in the country with some of the worst labor laws, I recognize that the only way to make real and lasting change in the lives of working people is for us to come together and demand our dignity and respect,” she said.

Ashton is also helping organize Occupy Chapel Hill, the local chapter of the protests that began on Wall Street and have since popped up in cities and towns across the country. A demonstration in Chapel Hill’s Peace and Justice Plaza last weekend drew more than 100 people, sleeping in tents on Saturday night to show their support for the movement.

Ashton said the Speaker Ban Law protests are a great example of the power students have when they come together, and that she hopes her fellow students will emulate their forebears in using this opportunity to strive for social change.

Students involved with the Real Silent Sam movement, a group calling for heightened awareness and constructive dialogue about UNC’s Confederate monument, also chose University Day to make a statement. The group held a demonstration on the steps of Wilson Library to clarify their aims and drum up support for their efforts.

Senior Virginia Thomas spoke on the significance of the issue and what inspired the movement.

“I think our community would be a lot stronger if we acknowledged our past in a useful way and allowed that to let us move forward in a healthy direction in the future,” Thomas said.

“It’s an important part of social-justice work to realize where we are coming from and where we are going from there.”

The free-speech debate continues on the UNC campus – witness the shouting down of former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo in 2009 – and those students with an eye on the big picture urge vigilance.

Like Paul Dickson, whose life was cut short in an automobile accident in 1972, many of today’s students are using their scholastic opportunity to leave a positive impact on their community. The spirit of the student-led protests of the ’60s lives on.

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