CCNY Strike Remembrance, April 22, 2004

City College SLAM, Professor Bill Crain and other student, faculty and community activists are planning a day of events at City College on Thursday, April 22nd to commemorate the 1969 City College Student Strike led by Black and Puerto Rican students that established Open Admissions and ethnic studies departments at every college in CUNY.City College SLAM, Professor Bill Crain and other student, faculty and community activists are planning a day of events at City College on Thursday, April 22nd to commemorate the 1969 City College Student Strike led by Black and Puerto Rican students that established Open Admissions and ethnic studies departments at every college in CUNY.

The first event at 12:15 PM will be a ceremony at "Rememberance Rock" on South Campus near Aaron Davis Hall where veterans from the 1969 CCNY Student Strike will and more recent CUNY activists will continue the annual tradition of rededicating "the Rock" to the principle of free higher education for all. In 1995, to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Open Admissions Strike, ministers from various faiths held an interfaith service at the Rock where soil from the African burial ground was placed at the rock in rememberance of the struggles and sacrifices of the African ancestors whose hopes for the future of their people were advanced by the victory of the Black and Puerto Rican students in1969 that resulted in the integration of CUNY.

Bill Crain and other faculty and student activists have held annual ceremonies at the Rock on April 22nd each year since. 1999, the 30th year after the 1969 Strike, City College placed a plaque on the rock to commemorate the struggle for Open Admissions.

The second event planned for the day will be a forum at 6:30 PM sponsored by CCNY SLAM! to bring together activists from the history of City College for the past 75 years. Speakers and performers will include:

— Henry Foner, an activist from the the '30s. He brings with him a wealth of
protest songs from his era, which are outrageously humorous and entertaining.

— Professor Carol Smith, a CUNY graduate who organized the recent exhibit in the Cohen
library on police repression at City College in the '30s.

— Professor Leonard Jeffries, Chair of the City College Black Studeies Department from 1972 to 1993. He was an adjunct at City College in 1969 and several of the leaders of the Black and Puerto Rican students were in his class.

— Professor James Smalls, a student and then professor at CCNY. He was involved in the
'69 student strike and then went on to be elected President of the CCNY Day Student Government, the director of the CCNY Finley Student Center, and an adjunct faculty member in the CCNY Black Studies department where he specialized in studies of world religions, and an activist in the Harlem community.

— Ron McGuire, CCNY student activist expelled following the Open Admissions strike now a lawyer who represents CUNY student activists.

— Sheria McFadden, former chair of the CCNY Graduate Student Counci will show her documentary
film about the '69 takeover.

— Ydanis Rodriguez, a CCNY graduate. One of the founders of Students For Educational Rights (S.E.R.), a leader of the CUNY student takeovers in 1989 and 1991, an organizer of the 1995 City Hall CUNY Rally. Mr. Rodriguez was also involved in the liberation of the Guilliermo Morales/ Assata Shakur Community Center at CCNY in the '90s.

— Sandra Barros, a veteran of student activism at CUNY, founding member of Hunter SLAM! in '95, a student group which fights on behalf of all oppressed people (with a focus on CUNY students).

The forum will be held in Room 250 in Sheperd Hall at the City College Campus at 138th Street and Convent Avenue.
There are free shuttle buses to City College from 137th Street on the 1-9 lines or 145th Street on the A-B-C-D lines but the campus is within walking distance from either station.

Rememberance Rock is outside Aaron Davis Hall near 135th Street and Convent Avenue. The 125th Street station on the A-B-C-D lines is slightly closer to Davis Hall than the 145th Street station but there is a free shuttle bus from 145th Street.

For further information call CCNY SLAM! as the Morales/Shakur Community Center — 212-650-5008

The Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center is located in room 3/201 in the North Academic Complex (the NAC Building) at City College at 138th Street and Convent Avenue.

During the 1989 CUNY student strike against tuition increases and budget cuts student activists at CCNY took over room 3/201 that was then a virtually unused lounge. The students converted 3/201 into a center of political, social and educational activity during the strike. As part of the agreement that ended the 1989 strike, the college and the university granted the strikers amensty and the college administration agreed to let S.E.R. maintain 3/201 as a center for community and student activities.

The students dedicated the Community Center to two former City College students, Guillermo Morales and Assata Shakur. Guillermo Morales is a Puerto Rican nationalist who was one of the members of the Black and Puerto Rican Student Community that led the 1969 Open Admissions Strike at City College. Assata Shakur is a former City College student who was a prominent member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. Guillermo and Assata were both political prisoners who escaped from custody in the United States and were given political asylum by the government of Cuba, where they currently live.

The Morales/Shakur Community Center is home to student activist organizations, such as SLAM! and S.E.R. as well as the Pre-University Program that has provided tutoring, counselling , leadership training and support services for youth in the Dominican community. The Community Center provides services for students and community members including a book exchange for CCNY students and a soup kitchen for the homeless as well as counselling services and computer resources for students and community residents. The Community Center also houses the CCNY Messenger, an independent student newspaper that lost its student activity fee funding in 1998 but which has continued to publish due to financial contributions from students and supporters.

For further information about the April 22nd programs or about the Morales/Shakur Community Center, call 212-650-5008.