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Exhibition Review
"Black Thursday Remembered: Race, Politics, and Campus Unrest in Northeast Wisconsin during the Late 1960s." Wisconsin Black Historical Society Museum, Milwaukee, Wisc. http://wbhsm.homestead.com.
Permanent exhibition, opened May 2009. 1,343 sq. ft. Stephen Kercher, project director, oral historian, exhibit co-curator; Joshua Ranger, exhibit co-curator; Shawn Mc-Afee, exhibit designer; Jeffrey Pickron, oral historian; Michelle Merkes, student research and production assistant; Anthony Pietsch, student research assistant; Kim Louagie, exhibit consultant.
Temporary exhibition [under review], Nov. 21, 2008–Feb. 12, 2009, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, Reeve Union, Oshkosh, Wisc. http://www.blackthursday.uwosh.edu/.
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| "Black Thursday Remembered" captures powerfully the tumult and protests that affected many college campuses across the United States at the end of the 1960s. Historians have focused most of their attention on the discord at large schools, including the University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; Northwestern University; San Fernando Valley State University; and San Francisco State University. But protests also occurred at smaller public and private regional universities and colleges. When examining the Wisconsin state university system, scholars have mainly studied the student demonstrations and violence on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. "Black Thursday Remembered" illuminates the history of civil rights activism on the campus of Wisconsin State University (WSU) at Oshkosh, thus expanding and refining the history of student-led movements in the 1960s. |
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As it neared its hundredth anniversary, WSU-Oshkosh was undergoing rapid and substantial changes. In matters pertaining to race, Oshkosh and its university remained starkly behind the times. Like many communities in the Midwest, "Sawdust City"—as Oshkosh was known because of its sash and door factories—was a "sundown town" where African Americans were not welcome to stay overnight. Those who challenged this custom put themselves at grave risk. In 1960 only seven African Americans lived in Oshkosh. But dramatic growth in the region's population during the 1960s pushed the university to grow as well. As it did, it sought to recruit black students from other parts of the state, particularly Milwaukee. Seventy such educational pioneers enrolled for the 1967–1968 academic year, and another thirty joined them the next year. At the time, there were over 10,000 students enrolled at the university. Neither the university nor the city was prepared for the challenges of social and educational integration. |
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Despite the work of the Oshkosh Human Rights Council, the Fox Valley Human Rights Council, and the Milwaukee branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the community and the university's administration and faculty were caught off guard by the arrival of ninety-four black college students. Oshkosh's citizens continued to practice a northern version of Jim Crow, denying their new black neighbors housing, entertainment, employment, and basic services. For instance, local barbers refused to cut black students' hair. Under these stressful circumstances, the everyday problems characteristic of most college campuses were invested with more sinister connotations. For example, when black students were put on housing waiting lists and offered alternative (and less pleasant) accommodations, or when their student loan or scholarship checks were late, they wondered if racism, not mere bureaucratic inefficiency, was involved. Matters climaxed in the fall semester of 1968. |
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