And hundreds of black students marched into Cornell University’s Willard Straight Hall on Wednesday afternoon and occupied the building for several hours after delivering a list of demands to the university’s president in a protest reminiscent of the 1969 takeover of the same building. More than 300 marchers, led by Black Students United, silently climbed three flights of stairs in Day Hall and handed a list of demands to President Martha Pollack, who had met with BSU earlier in the day. The protesters, the majority of whom were black and most of whom were people of color, were responding in part to the assault on Friday of a black Cornell student who said a group of white men called him the N-word and bloodied him by repeatedly punching him in the face in Collegetown. Two weeks prior to the occupation, a resident of the Latino Living Center reported hearing chants of “build a wall” from a nearby fraternity, Zeta Psi.
Cornell University Black Students Protest Racist Incidents on Campus
HeadlineSep 22, 2017