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Forty-five years to the day it occurred, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh students, faculty, staff and members of the broader Oshkosh community will gather to remember and commemorate the events of ‘Black Thursday’ on Nov. 21.

Representatives from UW Oshkosh’s Department of History, the Black Student Union, the Black Thursday Oral History Project will host the “Black Thursday Remembered: Annual Commemoration” at:

  • 5 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 21
  • Reeve Memorial Union, Room 307. 

 

The event is free and open to the public.

The annual commemoration remembers November 21, 1968, when African American students at the then-Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh engaged in dramatic demonstrations directed toward campus administrators when student requests for equal rights on campus were ignored. The tactics resulted in a mass arrest and the expulsion of 94 students, both black and white.

This year, program hosts also plan to make a special announcement following the presentation, said Byron Adams, Multicultural Retention Counselor and Advisor in the Center for Academic Support & Diversity at UW Oshkosh.

“It is vital to the Oshkosh community that we sustain and continue to remember this part of its history — to remember the sacrifices that were taken to be at the level of inclusivity, diversity and success we are at today,” Adams said. “I think as a whole, our society really values communal memories, and Black Thursday was a very significant event in the history of this campus and the Oshkosh community. Remembering events of the past, helps us making changes for the future, I believe.”

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