Students and faculty march onto I-5, stopping traffic, to protest the Vietnam War and fight against racial inequalities. Student organizers push a tractor into a deep hole near Meany Hall to protest construction worker unions that were “white only.” City authorities release three truckloads of bees to disperse a crowd of 200 protestors on Northeast 50th Street.

Welcome to the UW campus in the late 1960s, where heated arguments and often-violent protests characterized race relations between students of color and white faculty, staff and city authorities. The social justice and civil rights movements were marked by legal battles such as Brown v. Board of Education in 1964. UW students were no strangers to such battles.

“Everybody ran,” said alumna Marcie Hall, regarding a student protest in the 1960s on Northeast 50th Street when police chased the 200 protestors. “I got knocked to the ground.”

Civil rights activism didn’t start in the 1960s, but rather came in waves from the 1930s through today, said James Gregory, a UW professor of History and Chair and Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies.

The late 1960s marked a different kind of activism as organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Black Panther Party and the Black Student Union (BSU) bloomed with protests and sit-ins, he said.

In 1967, there were about 100 “negro” students at the UW, according to the documentary In Pursuit of Social Justice. However, even off-campus issues such as racist public policies affected students of color and their access to basic social services and housing.

Alum Elmer Dixon was one among 10 BSU members arrested for unlawful assembly.

Nonetheless, members of the Black Student Union fought hard for themselves and for high school students by demanding increased minority enrollment and fair treatment, according to the documentary. On March 29, 1968, members of the BSU took over Franklin High School to protest a principal who expelled black girls who wore their hair naturally, said UW alum Larry Gosset.

“It was not confusing to me to know what side of that equation to be on,” said UW alum Robert Maestas. “The city of Seattle was forever changed.”

That same year, the BSU took over President Charles E. Odegaard’s office with five demands: increased minority enrollment, increased minority retention, a learning resource center (i.e. Educational Opportunity Program and Office of Minority Affairs), increased minority faculty, staff and administrators, and presence in policy-making bodies, Gosset said.

Ethnic-based curricula gained ground in the late 1960s thanks to the BSU’s requests.

Citizens of Seattle voted “no” on a 1964 ballot initiative that would have made housing discrimination illegal, Gosset said. Additionally, black people in cities nationwide became impatient with the “pace of change,” and the Vietnam War added a context of international violence, Gregory said.

“I realized that the non-whites were herded into the central area and southern part of town,” said alum Eddie Demmings, a Seattle native who was raised on Beacon Hill.

Alexandra Liggins, a Seattle native of Thai-Tlingit descent, recalls her parents telling her they were unable to buy a home on Capitol Hill or on Mercer Island.

“Because I experienced racism so early in grade school, I didn’t know how to handle it,” she said. “I developed an animosity toward white people [and] had a chip on my shoulder for a while.”

Liggins later became co-president of Phoneix Consulting Group and began her career as a facilitator in domestic violence and child abuse issues and, eventually, diversity issues in 1991.

Although Liggins believes most people have good intentions, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable for their impact, she said, but rather, it means they shouldn’t rush to judge.

“We are all biased,” she said. “But given the power dynamic, we may not all be racist.”

During some of Liggins’s workshops, she often confronted hostile participants who argued loudly or walked out of class, she said. Once, a police officer set his gun on the desk for her to see, she said.

The events of this time affected many people in different ways.

“One could not help be aware that there was an undercurrent of various minorities that felt they had been left out of the big educational picture,” said alumna Sandra Kroupa, book arts and rare book curator for Special Collections at the UW. “Certain faculty felt that they were shortchanging the history of the world at large in leaving out all kinds of things.”

Kroupa, 62, has been on campus since she was 17 years old. Throughout each decade, she has witnessed both the good and bad.

“The voice of the student in 1955 was unheard here,” she said. “When I first got here at 17, someone described campus as a game preserve for intellectuals.”

Kroupa was happy to be part of the 1960s, an era that marked anti-Vietnam War protests and a push for racial equality, she said. She added that she wouldn’t trade her job or campus experience for anywhere else.

“It’s true we all have to get jobs to feed ourselves, but college doesn’t have to be that and only that,” Kroupa said. “On the other hand, you could feed a family of three for less than $5 [and] quarter tuition was less than $100.”

Both in high school and in college, Kroupa didn’t receive ethnic-based education but did have a handful of liberal professors, she said. However, her teachers still lacked diversity, as women and minority faculty only taught traditional foods and sewing classes.

Some — if not most — of the organizations at the time were extremely sexist, Gregory said. While unions were white-only and racial segregation was a social and legal norm, many progressive organizations had male leaders with female secretaries, he said.

To try to help Kroupa and her classmates understand the issues of the day, one of her professors took her class on a field trip to a local prison; another stood on the steps of Suzzallo in a monk’s robe and sang a weekly mass for the dead; and yet another was part of the infamous Seattle Seven, a group charged with conspiracy.

Even in the 1970s and 1980s, 85 percent of the UW undergraduate student body was non-minority, according to a 1986 Report to the Regents.

UW alumni and active organizations set the stage for minority enrollment and increased access and retention. They helped diversify the student body by leading both peaceful and violent protests — violence which often resulted from city authorities’ response. The 1960s was a time of turmoil, but also a sign of progress for the ability of student organizations to implement ideas that administrators and leaders at the time didn’t necessarily think about.

To learn more about how the culture at the UW is different now, check out part two of “UW: Now and then” in tomorrow’s paper.

Reach reporter Marissa Beach at features@dailyuw.com.