I want to start first by thinking everyone for being here. We are all here to discuss a moment in Howard University history, and a lot of you were here in the our zoom tonight, were direct participants in that moment so we invite you to use the chat in the q a to share reflections as we engage in dialogue. After our dialogue well take questions from now. And then finally this is being simulcast via youtube so share the link and those who may not be able to join us here can also view the program. April r. Silver commented that there are two howards. But she left it there. Almost as if to signify that what is known aint got to be reminded me of the famous score activist and former dean, kelly millers statement in the 1916 Howard University yearbook, quote, those who feel it know. Theres a howard hidden from view that nevertheless comes to the surface often and forcefully because it represents an alternative black political culture to use the word odd cedrick robinson. The culture that xis in mass among our people. A political culture more humanitarian than individualistic, more inventive than imitator. Im a product of that political culture and it confronted men byes would a student at Howard University. Silver was a part of that political culture. And it is it, not necessarily them, it is it that produced the moment of 1989, a moment where we saw an intent to remake Howard University for at the very least prevent its remaking. That year the board of trustees with the backing of the president , appointed lee atwater to a position. Atwater who was the Republican Committee chairman wanted to recruise black elites to the g. O. P. But it was the g. O. P. That had recently utilized a race sis dog whys until the form of the William Horton advertisement to help extend the rightward shift under ronald reagan. Atwater was the, a connect of the ad that directly targeted black people, many of whom looked like the first generation students at Howard University at the time. So a group known as black decided to resist. This group was founded by the son of a student activist, poet and budding leader on campus. By 1989 the leadership of the group was passed through april silver, a english major who has been studying under sanchez and miller. They with the help of men organizers took control 0 of the Administration Building on march 6, 1989. We are worth fighting for hurricane history of the Howard University student protest of 1989, a work that i wrote in deep collaboration with the members of black neoforce, tell thursday store of the moment and a larger story of a force of that alternative black political culture and how it converged to stepped extend the tradition of black student activism at black colleges and universities. The late 80s and 90s were an important site for the work, and that work continues. I am joined by miss silver who is the ceo of a direct extension of the work at black neoforce and now mayor of the city of musician number, whose political career is rooted in this moment as well. So i would like to first begin with a question for both both of you and its a very simple question. Think it helps orient this conversation in important ways and that question is, why did you attend howard . And all and what were your First Impressions of that space and the state of education in the late 1980s. Whoa who do you want to answer first . Ill go first. Before i answer the question, if i may, say hats off to you. Dr. Myers for the work you did and as you said this deep collaboration with the organizers of the Howard University protest in 1989. I want to say whats up my brother, mayor barack could as well, and also just give thanks. How we. Do we start off and just give thanks to our ancestors and all those who came before us, so i know well talk about that a little bit more, but to answer your question specifically, i love to tell the story but my going to howard. In high school i was not interested and was just herely of this you have to prepare for college, and in tenth and 11th t because in my home it was just expected that i would go to college but i didnt want to think but it. Just wasnt excited about it. So somewhere around the 11th 11th grade i went to a college fair and i should say i was born in new york but i went to junior high in and high school in los angeles. So, 11th grade at Hamilton High school in los angeles i went to this college fair, reluctantly, dutifully, and i saw this sea of white people with the different tables and then i saw these black people off in the margins and i was like, wow, this looks interesting. I walked over to the table and was introduced to this thing called Howard University. I had no idea. This was 85, i guess. I had no idea that there was such a thing as Howard University, no idea there was such a thing as a black university and i was drawn in immediately to see the pictures and the enthusiasm of those recruiters, i think it was man and a woman, and when they started talking about all of the people who graduated from howard i was instantly converted. I knew in that moment that is where i would go to college. I just knew. I was just i had never heard of that, there was no such thing. So, i applied, i was so sure that it was going to get in, it is the only school their only university aapplied to. My plan was to apply to howard and i had discovered that loyola in los angeles had a late application process so the plan was if i didnt get into howard, i would stay in los angeles and go to loyola marymont. My father said if you stay here in los angeles, because we want you close to home, ill buy you a car. But if you go to howard, all of our resources are going to be to send you back to the east coast and you do what you want but you can stay and you can have a car, and i was like, hear you, that would be awesome but im going to howard. So that was 11th grade. I got accepted april 21st, 1986 is when i received my letter of acceptance. I know the date. I still have the acceptance letter. And i cried. I absolutely cried when i got in. I couldnt believe how lucky i was to get into the only school that i applied to. I knew that i was supposed to be at this black institution. I was looking forward to discovering more about me, more about my heritage and this not to say that i grew up in a household where there was a lack of conversation about black heritage. Absolutely that wasnt the case. We were we are and were a proud black family but i didnt grow up in a household where my parents were social justice activists. They were working class folks who tried to do the best they could and wanted their oldest child to be followed by their youngest child, the two of us, to hopefully make a better life for themselves by going to college. So, they werent in the streets marching or myth. Working class folks mitchell father work for the post office for decades, me mother was an executive assistant. So the fact i could get in and good to howard i would have been a first generation graduate had i gone through the four years, which i did. It was just amazing. Cried. Still have the letter. Remember the day. And not to sound corny but the rest is history. So my introduction by these College Recruiters in 1985 us holiday i ended up entering howard in august 1986. I knew it was any destiny, no question. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here and having this important discussion. A pleasure to be hanging out with april. I actually went to a college tour that the school gave. I was supposed to be on a trip. Actually i was and i wasnt because i didnt want to go. And i came to school late, purposely, and the bus was in front of the school, and my guidance counselor said are you supposed to be on this trip . I and i said, you know, because i thought i was smarter than everybody at the time, i said i dont have a permission slip and you cant make in the go on the trip. He brought me into the building and called my father and the Guidance Counselors office, and got permission. And basically forced me to go on the trip, and i came down to Howard University and i saw all these black people in school from all over the place, studying things that things i cant even pronounce and i thought this is exactly where i would should be. That was like the best College Recruiting tool that they ever could have engaged us in. Actually bring us to the university and seeing it. So i said i have to come to school here and my father went to school there as well, so i i was not at that time in my life not interested really in college that much. I wanted to stay locally and go to school here because my parent would would want me to go to college so i would do it because of that i. I went to University High school one of the better schools in he city and i just thought it was a natural progression that you had to go to college. I wasnt these about it or excited or even thought that Howard University was a place i wanted to go. Until they made me go down there, almost like disvine intervention. I walked into the school, prepared to go to class and too what i normally do at school, and wound up that day at Howard University, and so as april said that is exactly in my mind where i was supposed to be, so i did everything in my power to get there. Filled out application, i did all the other kind of work i was supposed to do, and i got an acceptance letter and i was excited. To good down if with all the freshman before everybody else showed up. I realize i didnt introduce myself. Im joshua myers. He teach at Howard University. The Africana Studies department anded a a graduate of Howard University so we all share that idea 0 if you dont feel ityou dont know. But taking that the 1980s are a very difficult time for the black community, not just in the United States and also globalow. You have reaganomics and the antiapartheid struggle in Southern Africa and what is going on in the people of color in Central America and american the American Military and cold war. And howard students going back to the beginning of the decade had been organizing. They had been some response. But as the stories are told, were told to me, with your generation, generation that came in the fall of 1986 it wasnt automatic that you all became politically engaged. Can you talk but your journey to consciousness and how that manifested at howard. I always i grew up in a household where most of those things were happening. Big parties and people jumping up, giving diatribes on capitalism and reading poems and music. So it was kind of wild scene and my family in newark was very, very, very engaged, actually people here in the city of newark, a lot of organizing, a lot of police even attacks, all kind of things happening to our family while is was a child. And so some instances you start to move a. Move away from that bus when youre a kid and everybody elsees doing Something Different you still like you are feel like you are on outcrass. People talk but you because of your name, the way you dress, you dont celebrate christmas, dont have normal birthday parties and move away from that because the rest of society actually teaching you the opposite of. That like the poetry i heard when i was a kid was never poetry i heard in high school. What i thought i was doing something wrong or these people were not really sanchez read a poemdidnt sound like the poetry we studied in school. Or people that i heard growing up, and owent to howard it thought it would be easy to leave all of that in newark, and that was my first inclination to do that. And i met a young man who was a part of an Organization Called black united youth, and he invited me to a meeting, just out or curiosity, the magnet nick attraction because you have seen this stuff before and i went to the meeting and they were studying a become called capitalism and slavery. And i started reading and being part of what they were doing and almost like second nature. This is probably what i should be doing. I was trying to do both. I was trying to do that monday, tuesday and wednesday and on friday, saturday, sunday, i was hanging outtive the new york crew and jersey and philly and wreaking havoc, what College Students do, and i was like 1 and i would be 18 years old. Was a kid and we look back on that you see all the mistake outside made. I was a child. And when i started going to those meetings i was trying to get them to convince other people to be part of it. This is we i hang out with and be part of this because they were trying to do protests, silent protests. I remember i got travis and kevin baxter who kevin is still in new jersey in politics. To come to rally with me. That was it. Nobody else would do it. And so i decided to leave that organization. And bring what they were doing to my friends, and thats how i began that kind of thought process is really the way it happened. Just progressed like that and wasnt like well thoughtout an emotional reaction of a 1718yearold boy who felt like, im tired of being over here and being an outcast. Im going to make the worlds collide and thats what happened. Really important lesson for political organizing, people often talk about meeting people where they are, as if where they are is implicit and apolitical. The party escape you were czeched to the party scene you were connected to had political potential asee. So black neoforce, you and others also that was happening in new york at the time. We had howard beach, you had hawkins, all these things going on. Right . So, those things were a part of helping to educate people on where they live, and it wasnt like a far fetch to get people to think they should be part of these things. I was going to say, that came through music, through hiphop, and so miss silver, can you speak to your journey and what the mayor is speaking to, his experience, and your world . In terms of being politically educate . Is that the question . Yes. Yeah. My First Organization the one thing i remember clearly as a freshman was the abundance of opportunity to be involved to be etch gauged to do something and engaged to do something. It was absolutely overwhelming. I knew i wanted to be more than just a student in the classroom. So my first the very First Organization i joined was the california club, because remember im a native new yorker but im coming to howard from los angeles, and that was just me wanting to be involved in getting to know people, and then after that, i joined the alpha Sweetheart Club because you are presented with greek life or black greek life and i had never been presented with any of. That this was me searching to try to figure out what am i going do because i want to be more than just a student. So along the way with me going on this journey of discovery and what is available and how do i use my talents and such, i ran i was writing for the hilltop as well. So somewhere around 8 , 88 im being introduced to this guy, razz baraka who is going on tour and im covering events. Think i actually covered i think you put this in the book, dr. Myers, that National Black student unity conference, i think im saying the name wrong but i think i covered it. So im being introduced to all of these political education and why i dime howard in the first place, and i see this guy. With this young woman, who at the time was lisa williamson, and im blown everybody. Absolutely blown away. So it was commitly content complimentary content in speaking and engaged. Was an english major and also an africanamerican studies minor. So all of this real live, current commentary commit committed what i was learning but, woman named William Sanchez and mary baraka and i thought this is exactly what i wanted to get outside of the classroom. When i discovered this guy who was so dynamic and speak with the son i was like, lineage is right here. So im following them around, im going to different events, im being politicallied of indicated, and it just spoke to my soul. And then i started going to the black neoforce meetings which were newly formed, totally endressed, inspired, intellectually stimulated and i was like, im learning so much. This is exactly where i want to be, this is what i want to learn. And as you mentioned in the book i thought promoting the organizations just because. I would make up fliers. Used to be a work study student at the department of energy, and so in my enthusiasm to be a part of not even a part of but to goh to the meetings on fridays and share my enthusiasm and my love of what i was learning, without anybody asking i didnt know anybody i started making up my own fliers and posting them everywhere i could on campus, and was particularly proud of myself because i would put them in the stalls of the womens bathrooms where it what least expected. Walked around camp campus with fliers, putting anywheres everybody because i wanted to share any joy about these conversations, these debates, the love that was going on, the intellectual stimulation, that is how much i loved black neoforce. I wanted everybody to know. Would tape the fliersen benches on the yard not knowing anybody. But i was inspired and shell intel electric intellectually systemed. May baraka helped me. And temperatures myers you can help me, dr. Russell somebody was the head russel adams. Yes, yes, one of my professors, yes. Learned so much, and in my english class is learn about our culture through poetry, through the literature, of course. So i was just it was an amazing space to be in. Its what i expected and more. So, so much of my political education came through howard and i think this is important to note as well, dr. Myers of. I had a sense of what was going on in source of current events. Wasnt a news junkie. Was not. I could have a surface conversation what was going on but the thing knew the mos