Many members of the campus community may not be aware of De Anza’s role in the Civil Rights and Black power movements in the late sixties and early seventies. Despite being a predominantly white campus at the time, De Anza was active and involved in the issues and movements that were gripping the nation.

On April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., hundreds of De Anza students gathered around the fountain in front of the library steps for a memorial and rally that paid “tribute to a great man,” said Gary Giaretto a member of the Student Union.

Few have had as much impact upon the American consciousness as the late civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who devoted nearly his entire life for the non-violent fight for full citizenship rights of the poor, disadvantaged, and racially oppressed in the United States.

In 1968, the campus consisted primarily of white students. The minority students (Blacks and Chicanos) who attended De Anza, felt out of place and were discriminated against.

“Martin Luther King is dead, but racism exists still,” Giaretto said that day in 1968. “This is a white college, we live in a white community … I want to know what you people intend to do about it. Do we have to go through another Civil War?” he asked.

Before his death, King, a twenty-six year old Baptist minister, became fed up from the racism in the nation. He proclaimed:

“There comes a time when people get tired … tired of being kicked about by the brutal feet of oppression. We have no alternative but to protest.”

Many students followed King’s model of peaceful protest, but during the sixties, the debate of violent versus nonviolent protest was a hot topic around the country and around our campus.

During a speech on campus about a month after King’s assassination, Harry Edwards, San Jose State Instructor and Olympic boycott organizer, blasted the status quo of American society, which he said, agreed with King.

Edwards had more radical views saying, “White young people must begin to realize that the great luxury liner is on the rocks. It’s full of holes with a madman at the helm.”

“We have no choice but to take the ship over … It is our responsibility to rebel” he said during his speech.

Edwards stressed that it was the “system” that was at fault and that the system would have to be eradicated.

Although he gave no specific proposals for changing the system other than “any means possible,” Edwards said the time had come to flee the burning house or the sinking ship that is commonly known as “America.”

By “any means possible,” to achieve equality among the races is what Stokely Carmichael advocated during a speech to a crowd of about 750 De Anza students in Campus Center. Carmichael characterized the black power movement as supporting “revolutionary violence because it is necessary to arrest white oppression. Whatever we have at our disposal, we will use to end our oppression.”

He stressed that the major failure of all liberal movements is that their primary task is to stop confrontation and that if they see a polarization occurring on the right or left, with the rich or poor or blacks or white, they see their main job as stopping confrontation. In his talk Carmichael said he believed this is a mistake because in many cases we need confrontation to resolve problems.

When asked what the black people plan to do with power once they get it: “We will use that power to meet the needs and desires of our people.”

He stated, “It is more important for someone to have a full stomach rather than a vote. A vote on an empty stomach doesn’t mean anything. The liberal movement in the United States should move to create a more conducive atmosphere for an opportunity for economic equality.”

To achieve greater economic equality, a few instructors at De Anza advocated non-violence by means of solidarity and education within the Black and Chicano student groups.

“If the Chicanos and Negroes are going to be part of the education system, they will have to have more identities. People have to be made aware of the cultural differences that these two ethnic groups have” said Richard Rios, chairman for the Chicano and Black student unions on the De Anza campus about 30 years ago.

Through the Chicano and Black student unions, students learned about their ancestral background and were enrolled in courses that cater to their desires, such as Black history taught by a Black teacher.

“I’ve considered lecturer series with visiting minority group lecturers, social events such as rallies, conventions and even an international day where people of the same nationality get together and build booths where they can show their native dress, food, music, art and anything else they could think of,” said Rios.

Rios said that it is a good chance for other minority students to get together and help each other regain identities that they have been denied all their life.

Other figures have also recently stressed the importance of solidarity within minority groups on campus.

Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers, made a surprise visit to the Hinson Campus Center in Jan. 1999. He, too, claimed that we as a society “need to feel responsibility for our own destiny. We need to build a coalition of oppressed people. We need an environment that is inclusive of the poor, the different and the estranged.”

This article has been reprinted from the

February 28, 2000 issue.

Sources- La Voz archives found in the Learning Center