Event to Recall ‘60s Activism at CSUN

As an original faculty member of the Pan-African studies department at Cal State Northridge, Barbara Rhodes remembers well the turmoil of Nov. 4, 1968.

On that day, members of the Black Student Union took over the administration building at San Fernando Valley State College--as CSUN was then known--leading to the creation of minority studies departments.

Rhodes has helped organize a midday celebration of that event’s 29th anniversary, set for Tuesday. While not seeking a return to the exact ideology of the late 1960s, she finds value in appreciating it, especially in what she terms “today’s climate of Prop. 209 and welfare reform.”

“Since what we’re celebrating is activism and the effect students then had, we wanted to give current students an opportunity for dialogue,” she said.

During the event, which is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center, representatives from Pan-African studies and the Black Student Union will present a brief history of the founding of the department. Students Tamara Benefield and Tyrone Fox will recite poetry and drama.

A performance of the play “The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer: Celebrating the Warrior Spirit in African-American Women” will follow. Students from Inglewood and Kennedy high schools will read essays on “Race Relations and My Community.”

The day will end with a panel discussion on “A New Agenda for Activism in the ‘90s” and an open forum on the roles of the Black Student Union and the Pan-African studies department in the next century.

Rhodes said her challenge as a professor and organizer of the DuBois-Hamer Institute has been to convince students that the school’s history is linked to that of the whole country, which in turn has a direct bearing on their day-to-day lives.

In those students, she often catches glimmers of the spirit to be celebrated Tuesday.

“I don’t see a fire,” she said, “but I see embers that, if they’re stoked, could become stronger.”