SOUL of the Sixties
Like students on other predominately white college and university campuses, in the late 1960s, Black college students in Utah organized and demanded change. Black students on campus organized the Student Opportunity University League (SOUL) in 1967 with a handful of Black students and one white member. The initial focus was on tutoring and self-help. According to founding member and President Grover Thompson, then a nineteen-year-old undergraduate and a native of Salt Lake, the group's goal was to develop some black pride, and be educated in black pride-so those who go around sporting it really know what they're talking about. Thompson eventually became the first Black student body president when he won as a write-in candidate in 1971.
SOUL became the Black Student Union (BSU) in 1969. During the late '60s and early '70s, students voiced their dissatisfaction and rejection of racism on campus but also held programs celebrating Black culture. Programs, that welcomed the whole campus community.
The selection of articles above illustrate examples from articles, letters, and ads written by and about the BSU in the late 60s and 70s.
Utonian 1971
Pictured:
- Pearl Myers
- Beverly Bunch
- Robbie Hayes
- Irma Edwards
- Melodie Green
- Anita
- Willie White
- Zac Horsten
- Carl Mason (Advisor)
- Gail Ortega
- Grover Thompson
- Willie Lee Jones
- Paul Ross
- Ray Jefferson
- Bill Ashford
- Nate Tribble
Sources
University of Utah Student Newspapers--The Chronicle (01-25-1977). https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s65x4s80/22474453
To learn more about the Black Campus movement of the 60s see Kendi, I. X. (2012). The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972. Palgrave Mcmillian.