FLAG DISPUTE - BLACKS PULL DOWN THE AMERICAN FLAG

            I had written a 170-page typescript, BLACK ERUPTION, SOUTHERN STYLE, of SUNO events in summer 1969 as I was not teaching that season as originally planned.  Moving to Europe and then back and never having a teaching post in the US, struggling to pay bills, I sent most of my material to Tulane Special Collections, now Louisiana Research Center.  At least 2 scholars used my SUNO typescript and acknowledged credit in their published works, Adam Fairclough and Jeffrey Turner.  I think it was in summer of 2014 when I received a call from Mr. Leon Miller, the director of the LRC.  He asked if I had a copy of the typescript.  No.  The reason he inquired, Tulane had received a call (I think from California) from another scholar requesting to use the material, but the 170-page typescript was missing, or lost, or stolen.  Tulane searched, and I asked friends who might have had a copy.  No luck.  The typescript was controversial.  Some might find it offensive.  After a year, it is still missing.  Because it is still missing, I decided to use my memory to try to recall some of the important points not covered by others.  Hugh Murray

THE BLACK NATIONALIST STRIKE AT SUNO, 1969
(short version June 2015) by Hugh Murray

            The SUNO strike of 1969 began a few days before Easter, on 2 April, 8am, when a number of students gathered round the flag pole in front of the Administration Building at SUNO.  They proceeded to take down the already flying American flag, and replace it with a Black Liberation Flag – black, red, and green.  The green represented nature in Africa, the red the blood of the people, and the black, the color of their skin.  Some of the leaders of the student protest then distributed a mimeographed page with the pledge of allegiance to the new flag, and most assembled there took the pledge.  The pledge, which I get now from Adam Fairclough’s Race & Democracy, p. 429: “I pledge allegiance to the Black Liberation Flag and to the cause for which it stands – Black people together, indivisible for liberation, self-defense, self-determination.  I am prepared to give my life in its defense.”  (Strangely, Fairclough describes the flag as black, green, and gold, rather than black, red, and green.  Perhaps he was confusing it with the flag of Abyssinia, which was green, red, and yellow and was used by Black Nationalists in the early 20^th century.  But the SUNO flag was black, red, and green.)  I was there as a sympathizer, but when I read the pledge, did not take it.  I don’t recall all the details but two leaders of the Africa America Student Assn were Val Ferdinand and Lynn French.  They also read a list of “non-negotiable” demands that they were issuing to the SUNO Administration, the objective of which was to re-from the university into a Black-centered institution, such as the creation of a Black Studies Department, and hiring a draft councilor (and the person suggested was a young man who opposed the draft).  Some of the demands were of a more physical nature, for the contrast between the physical plant of “white” LSUNO with “Black” SUNO was stark, with the facilities at the former far nicer than those at the latter institution.  

Of the 2.200 students at SUNO, only one was white.  The first non-Black faculty had been hired only a few years prior when a Korea was employed.  This year, there were about 10 of us non-Blacks, including me teaching history, Vera Krieger, who taught English, and George Haggar, an Arab-Canadian who taught political science.  The university was a branch of Southern University in Baton Rouge, then the world’s largest Black university, and the segregated counterpart to Louisiana State University.  When LSU opened a branch in New Orleans near the Lake Pontchartrain, soon after SU opened its branch also near the lake.  LSUNO (later, the U. of NO) and SUNO were new institutions of the 1950s and 60s.  Then the AAS presented its demands to change the ideal of SUNO, these demands were rejected by Dean Bashful and the university’s administration.  Consequently, a student boycott of classes began.

            As the strike gained momentum, the Administration fought back.  And not just the SUNO Administration.  NO Chief of Police Joseph Giarrusso and NO Mayor Victor Schiro announced that the American flag would be protected.  When students removed it one morning, NO police marched in, lowered the students’ banner, and rehoisted the American flag.  There were some scuffles and arrests.  Photos showed the flag pole with the American flag guarded by police amid hostility from the students.  (This is not from my memory but from Fairclough, p. 430)  The SUNO Administration now claimed that the students were not the leaders of the movement, but were being manipulated by an Arab professor on campus, a white man.  Prof. George Haggar had been born to a Christian Arab family in French Syria/Lebanon during WWII.  He had studied at Columbia U. in New York City where he earned a doctorate in political science.  He had also published book reviews in some of the leading academic journals in his field.  He had taught at Waterloo Univ. in Canada, where he also held citizenship.  While the SUNO anti-boycott portrayed him as the real leader of the protest, that Black students were being misled by this white, Haggar asserted that he was not white, but brown.  He also denied leading any protest movement on campus.  The AAS vehemently denied that they were mere pawns of the Arab or whites or anyone else.  They declared that they were promoting Black Nationalism and wanted a university to reflect that viewpoint, and to achieve it they continued the boycott into the spring of 1969.  At one point the national leader of SNCC, once the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, by 1969 the Student National Coordinating Committee, James Foreman, came to SUNO campus and spoke to Haggar and various students.

            About the same time, the national media were focused on the Black power strike at Cornell U. in upstate New York, in which some Black students took rifles to the campus.  Those students were featured on the cover of Newsweek or Time magazines.  So, about this same time, Val Ferdinand and Lynn French brought their weapons to SUNO, and this was featured in the New Orleans media.

            At one point, a long line of police with loaded weapons was formed to enter SUNO campus.  Quickly assembled to face it was an equally long line of students (and one or 2 faculty, myself and Vera).  We hoped to stop the intrusion of the police onto the campus.  For a time, neither side moved.  No one shouted.  I suspect, had a stone been thrown, shots would have been fired.  No stone was hurled.  I think both sides withdrew.  Violence was averted; no one was shot, no one was hurt.

            Gov. John McKiethen, Democrat, mobilized units of the National Guard, and helicopters began to buzz round the campus.  On 21 April 1969 McKiethen came to campus and entered a building to discover what was causing daily headlines.  In one building a huge crowd of students came in to see him.  He would address them.  But as he was escorted to the dais, pictures were taken as he stood beneath the Black Liberation Flag.  McKiethen began his remarks: “Would you kindly tell me what flag is that above me?”  Many shouted, the BLF with others shouting what the symbolism was.  “Would you kindly remove that flag as I speak?”  I do not recall his words, though I suspect he praised the American flag.  This was the first time a governor of Louisiana had ever visited the campus and he promised to inquire about the problems facing the university and make improvements.

            Again, I do not recall the sequence of events, but while McKiethen was in NO, he drove downtown where some of the protestors had gathered, in particular George Haggar and Val Ferdinand.  The governor’s limo drove to where the other two were and perhaps a hand gesture and words invited them into the vehicle – or so they thought.  Haggar climbed in, but when Ferdinand attempted to enter, the governor’s party said no.  McKiethen would speak to Haggar in private.  According to Haggar, McKeithen then offered the Arab anything he wanted if he would break the strike at SUNO.  Of course, Haggar maintained he had no such power, but I don’t know if he ever said that in the limo.  Bottom line, Haggar rejected McKiethen’s offer.

            Shortly after this, SUNO fired Prof. Haggar.  Because he was not a citizen and in the US on an employment visa, loss of the teaching post meant Haggar was then liable to be deported.

            Although fired, Haggar returned to his office on SUNO campus, and when word came that the Administration was sending security to remove him, a barricade of desks was erected.  When, however, NO Police were called to remove him, Haggar fled.  Moreover, he did not return to the room he had rented through the university, suspecting the landlady was too close to Dean Bashful.  Instead, he would remain that night at the home of another white faculty member, Vera Krieger, who was Jewish.  I too was at her home that night.  After supper, the three of us sat on her sofa to watch the local news.  One of the first items was a report by NO Police Chief Joseph Giarrusso, whose demeanor reminded me of 1930s crime films: Pointing his finger, Giarrusso announced to the camera “I hope you are watching this Dr. Haggar, because you are not so brave.  When my men went to arrest you this afternoon, you ran away.  You are not brave.  And I am telling you now, you are to be arrested on sight!”  On the couch, Vera and I were frozen in fear upon hearing these remarks.  But Haggar burst out laughing.  An incredible, memorable scene.

            Next day, class (or boycotted class) as usual.  Vera drove to the campus as usual, but this morning Haggar was hidden from sight on the floor of her auto.  Once he appeared on campus, hundreds of students surrounded him to protect him from the threatened arrest.  Haggar made a short speech.  Dean Bashful, the chief administrator of SUNO, came to me, pleading, “Get him out of here.  If the police come to get him, there is sure to be violence.”

            Haggar had made his appearance and his speech.  I then urged him to leave with me to avoid violence.  As I drove him away from the campus, I heard a helicopter above that seemed to follow.  It was a police helicopter.  When I dropped him off at his own apartment, the police swooped in and arrested him.

            All this was p. 1 in the various editions of the NO States-Item, the afternoon newspaper of the morning Times-Picayune.  I think Haggar was released on bail without staying overnight in jail.  He was fired from SUNO and then arrested for going on campus, and the government wanted him deported.  Haggar sent feelers to a Black scholar then at San Francisco State U (or college), about being hired quickly to fend off immigration problems, but felt he was being stalled and strung along.  Nothing came of this.  About this time from my apartment he was interviewed on a Canadian Broadcasting nationwide call in program about events at SUNO.  But he also brought in other topics and I was chagrined when he blared at a caller that “Your rabbi told you wrong,” and Haggar went on to denounce Israeli policies in the Middle East.  Haggar was a radical, but he was a man of great courage and intelligence.

           Haggar could fight the deportation case, but without a job or job offer, his stay in the US would be untenable.  So he decided to depart for Canada on his own.

            Meanwhile, the SUNO strike fizzed out.  Although I had been offered a teaching post for the summer of 1969, that offer was rescinded.  Furthermore, I was told henceforth I would be on a blacklist.  I have no idea if that were true; I only know that I have never held a university teaching position in America since 1969.

            Haggar was in Canada and he was radical.  Earlier, in the 1968 fall term of that school year, I was driving him in my car as we discussed various topics.  On one occasion he explained to me what had been Stalin’s greatest mistake.  Stalin had failed to incorporate the various nations of Eastern Europe into the USSR.  I was amazed for I doubt if many people would agree that that was Stalin’s greatest mistake.  On another occasion, he informed me that Stalin’s greatest mistake was that he did not break up the family.  I could not roll my eyes because I was driving.  George was radical.  And after he had left the US, the last I heard was that he was planning to write a biography of a woman hi-jacker who had taken over a plane for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.  Radical though he was, it is hard for me to believe that hundreds of Black students at SUNO were simply “dupes” of the Arab at the height of Black Nationalism in the US in general and at SUNO in particular.

            Gov. McKiethen had offered Haggar anything he wanted if he would only break the SUNO student strike.  Haggar rejected the offer and was fired and effectively deported.  Val Ferdinand, perhaps the most prominent student leader of the boycott and protests, had sought to enter the governor’s limo when Haggar entered.  At that time, Ferdinand was told, no.  Clearly, the governor wanted to make his offer to Haggar in private.  After Haggar rejected, did the governor make a similar offer to Ferdinand?
            Ferdinand was talented.  The first time I encountered him was before the uprising, probably during the first semester 1968-69.  A poetry contest at SUNO had been arranged, and I was selected to be among the judges.  There were only 4 contestants, and 3 read rather conventional poems (I think they were all original poems).  Val’s was different.  His “reading” was really a performance, similar to those in a poetry slam.  His title, “Niggers in the Streets,” and in ghetto language it was a description of the activity that one might see in a Black urban neighborhood.  Though he was not my student, I thought he deserved 1^st prize, as did most of the judges.  Ferdinand won the contest.

            Marcus S. Cox in “Keep Our Black Warriors Out of the Draft,” in Educational Foundations, Winter-Spring 2006, writes: “On May 14, 1969 student leaders at Southern University met with Louisianan Governor John McKeithen to discuss their grievances.  Both parties characterized the meeting as productive.  The Governor agreed to several demands of which included a major legislative bill for $100,000 for campus security….better cafeteria facilities to more library books and better street lighting.”  It was unclear as to how much of this was for SUNO and how much for the larger Southern U. in Baton Rouge.

            The SUNO boycott/strike collapsed by May 1969.  In the summer of 1969 Ferdinand became editor of a new Black newspaper in NO.  He was also active in the Free Southern Theater (a theater group that began in the early 1960s when they performed integrated plays in Black churches in Mississippi).  Under Ferdinand, the FST moved from integration to Black Nationalism.  I attended one of the FST performances in the summer 1969.  I was the only white in the audience.  There were drums on stage.  At one point, Val, center stage, began to shout “Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger…” and the audience joined in the shout.  Ferdinand was talented.

            Soon thereafter Ferdinand changed his name to Kalamu Ya Salaam and became editor of Black Collegian.  Despite the numerous typos and errors in the articles of Black Collegian, the magazine quickly grew in advertising and prestige, for this was one place where major corporations could recruit Blacks to their companies, fulfilling affirmative action quotas now required by the EEOC and the Nixon Administration.  The want-ad section expanded with affirmative action, and in a decade, the magazine had become so slick and thick, about 500 pages, that it was a major periodical.

             In June 2015, when I googled Ferdinand and Kalamu Ya Salaam and checked various websites like afropoets.net and thehistorymakers.com and the blurb about him in Historical Dictionary of African American Theater, they all report that he had served in the US Army in Korea, attended Carleton College, and returned to his native NO to receive an AA degree in business administration from Delgado Junior College.  I find this astonishing, for there is not a word about his activities at SUNO!  I have no proof, but I wonder if Gov. McKiethen offered Val Ferdinand anything he might want if he would break the SUNO boycott/strike?!  And in 1969, I was not the only person with such suspicions.

          HUGH MURRAY