On March 20 a group of about 200 picketers marched outside Hill Auditorium during the university’s Honors Convocation, at which President Robben Fleming was speaking. A party of white protesters entered the concert hall and marched up and down the aisles, fists raised in a Black Power salute, chanting “Open it up or shut it down.” BAM leaders were angry that the disruption of the ceremony had been undertaken without their approval. Through the Michigan Daily, the university’s student newspaper, BAM told its supporters: “If we don’t say do something, don’t you do it.”
- Birth of the Black Action Movement, Michigan Daily, December 1, 2006.
- AP wire photo, March 19, 1970. Wystan Stevens collection.
- Suggested Research Topics - The Black Action Movement: An Assessment of its Goals, and Effects on University Policies and Procedures, Bentley Historical Library
