Lessons From The Living Wage Campaign
The 2002 film “Occupation” tells the story of Harvard students’ 21-day occupation of Massachusetts Hall, a student dormitory and administrative office building that houses the office of the University president. The occupation was the boiling point of a four-year campaign for a living wage for all Harvard employees.
Aaron D. Bartley, a member of the living wage campaign, voiced these frustrations in an op-ed a year before the occupation:
“Why, after countless public events organized by students and workers, a petition signed by more than one thousand students and 150 faculty--including professors across the ideological spectrum from Cornel R. West ’74 to former Sen. Alan K. Simpson--and several resolutions passed by the Cambridge City Council has President Neil L. Rudenstine failed to commit to a living wage?”
Remembering Aaron Bushnell: Palestine and the Legacy of Self-Immolation
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’
The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
Those are the words of 25-year-old serviceman Aaron Bushnell, who lit himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C., protesting the United States’s support for Israel’s mass murder of what is currently estimated to be over 30,000 Palestinians.
When Harvard Became Black
Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the second Black person to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard, started Negro History Week in February 1926, laying the foundation for the Black History Month we know and celebrate today.
Just a week into this Black History Month, AFRO has hosted a film screening of Spike Lee’s classic “Do The Right Thing,” kicked off a community book club of Assata Shakur’s autobiography, and painted a mural to celebrate the occasion.
As AFRO continues to highlight our powerful history, it’s essential for the Harvard community to learn and celebrate the Black history that occurred on our own campus. Learning when Harvard became Black can and does inform how we at AFRO approach community and our organizing today.
From Vietnam to Palestine: How Harvard Suppresses Student Protest
On Nov. 29, the African and African American Resistance Organization and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Caucus of the Harvard Graduate Student Union organized a student walkout as part of a week of action in solidarity with the people of Palestine. We asked students to walk out of the last fifteen minutes of their class for the nearly 15,000 (at the time) Palestinians who were dead or under the rubble.
For this, we are facing disciplinary cases before the Harvard College Administrative Board, the body responsible for the application and enforcement of College disciplinary policies.
It’s important to understand that this is more than an unjust attempt at disciplinary action taken against student leaders — the University policy in question has a long history of repressing campus organizers.