Madison in the Sixties – the first week of February 1969 – the Black Revolution symposium.
From February 3-8, twenty-one nationally renowned guests – including the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young – and forty-three faculty, staff, and students, lead a conference at the University of Wisconsin entitled “The Black Revolution: To What Ends?” Produced by Union Forum Committee co-chairs Margery Tabankin and Neil Weisfeld for $8,861, the six-day symposium attracts 16,500 attendees and crystallizes the incipient Black power movement on campus. Chancellor Edwin Young unwittingly helps underwrite the conference, through a $2,500 contribution his office had made to the Afro-American Race Relations Center, which turned it over to the conference.[i]