Tony introduces you to Askia Davis, leader of the Black League of Afro-American Collegians (BLAC). Tony explains that Davis was arrested on May 12 with 16 other Black and Puerto Rican students. Police raided Davis’ home while holding him at gunpoint. As you scan the campus lawn, you see that Davis’ organization and Tony’s Puerto Rican Alliance have assembled about 200 rally leaders to picket.

Together they explain that, like at City, their conflict arose over a set of 18 demands submitted to Brooklyn College administrators to change the school’s admissions and curricular practices, in order to better represent the student body, its Black and Puerto Rican population, and the demographics of its neighborhood in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Dr. Askia Davis would go on to become Superintendent of Schools in Harlem. You can watch an interview with Dr. Davis on YouTube, on the occasion of a book he co-authored with his son, Coming of Age in the Hip-Hop Generation.