Ronald B. McGuire:REMINDER: 40th Anniversary of City College Black and Puerto Rican Students' strike - Wednesday, April 22, 2009, at noon on Liberation Hill (Remembrance Rock) at City College. Due to construction please use the gate house entrance to the City College South Campus at 133rd Street and Convent Avenue.
Youngbloods, Elders and Friends:
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at noon alumni, students, faculty and community members will
gather at Remembrance Rock on the South Campus of Harlem University (a/k/a City College) to celebrate and commemorate the 40th anniversary of the historic victory of the 1969 Open Admissions Strike and to rededicate ourselves to supporting the goals of the Black and Puerto Rican students whose vision and courage transformed CUNY and set the stage for
the admission of Black and Puerto Rican students and the establishment of
ethnic studies in public universities throughout the United States.
Remembrance Rock was originally dedicated in 1958 when the CCNY graduating class placed a plaque bearing the following inscription at the Rock:
"To this REMEMBRANCE ROCK has been brought Precious Earth from the battlefields of Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, Argonne Forest, Normandy Beach and Korea to Memorialize the gallant boys of Alma Mater who died in our wars.
Here has also been placed Soil from City Hall, the Old 23rd Street Building and the Crowded Tenements of our City to symbolize the gratitude of all those students who here received a Free College Education.
May Remembrance Rock ever serve as a place for Alumni of the City College to come to pause and Remember."
On April 22, 1969 250 Black and Puerto Rican Students occupied the South Campus where Remembrance Rock lays during the open admissions strike. The Black and Puerto Rican students renamed City College the University of Harlem to emphasize their vision of transforming City College into a vehicle of empowerment and liberation for Afro-American and Puerto Rican people.
The integration of the CUNY student body was only one of three aims of the five demands of the Open Admissions Strike. The Black and Puerto Rican students who led the strike were committed to transforming City College and CUNY into a new college and a new university dedicated to serving the needs of the Black and Puerto Rican communities of New York City and developing and discovering links between the African, Puerto Rican and Caribbean Diaspora communities in New York with the homelands of the students' ancestors.
During the 1970's City College led in developing programs in Black Studies and other ethnic studies, urban legal and medical studies, child development and professional education of Black and Puerto Rican Students.
During the 1991 CUNY student strike City College student activists rediscovered Remembrance Rock on the nearly abandoned South Campus. One of the activists noted the irony that plaque placed by the virtually all-white 1958 graduating class that dedicated Remembrance Rock in Harlem neglected to mention City College's integral connection to the soil of Harlem on which the rock stood.
On April 22, 1995 African American student activists brought sacred soil from the African Burial Ground near City Hall to Remembrance Rock. The soil of the African ancestors mingled with the soil of Harlem and was permanently placed at the Rock that day in an interfaith rededication ceremony presided over by ministers of the Christian, Muslim and traditional African religions. Ironically, police helicopters circled the 1995 ceremony as the Rock was rededicated as a symbol linking the struggle of CUNY's student activists to the hopes, dreams and struggles of their African and enslaved ancestors.
In 1999 a second plaque was placed at Remembrance Rock by the CCNY Undergraduate Student Government, the Faculty Senate and the CCNY PSC Chapter stating:
"In 1969 The City College initiated the City University of New York's Open Admissions Policy which created vast new educational opportunities for all the peoples of the City of New York."
Now that we have lost Open Admissions, it is more important than ever for those of us who believe in reestablishing educational democracy at CUNY to pause and remember in order to rededicate ourselves to the work that needs to be done.
In 1969 Black and Puerto Rican students at City College established The Paper which has remained the Afro-Centric newspaper published by City College students for 40 years. For all those years the masthead of The Paper bears the following words of Langston Hughes which are a fitting theme for this year's bittersweet gathering at the Rock on the hilltop.
"So we stand here on the edge of Hell in Harlem and look out on the world and wonder what we're gonna do in the face of what we remember."
Ronald B. McGuire
Harlem University, expelled, 1969.
Remembrance Rock is between Aaron Davis Hall and the "Y" Building approximately one block south of the South Campus gate at 135th Street and Convent Avenue. Due to construction please use the gate house entrance to the City College campus at 133rd Street and Convent Avenue.
Nearest subways are the #1 at 137th Street or the A/B/C/D at 125th Street. From 125th street you can walk to the 133rd Street gate or take the M101 or M100 bus to 133rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue and walk one block west to Convent Avenue.
Ronald B. McGuire:
https://theblacklist.net/
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