{"value"=>"<p>This subseries documents some of the activities of the following groups: the Harvard- Radcliffe Association of African and Afro-American Students (Afro), the Harvard-Radcliffe Afro-American Cultural Center, the Pan African Liberation Committee (PALC), the Student Organization of Black Unity (SOBU). Only Afro's constitution and various directories of black students at Harvard are available here; other Afro-related documents are interspaced throughout the series as a result of the organization's role in the founding and early life of the department. The SOBU file (1969-1971) consists of various appeals to students, position papers on the organization, on blacks at Harvard, the university in general, the role of students in the civil rights movement, the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa and government persecution of the Black Panther Party. Documents of the Cultural Center include calendars of events, letters from its executive director, Imani Kazana and other members, copies of its publication <em render=\"underline\">The</em> <em render=\"underline\">Word</em>, and publicity materials on its various fundraising efforts. The Center also published the <em render=\"underline\">Harvard Journal of Negro Affairs</em> (1963), maintained a library and a reading room, organized cultural performances, lectures and workshops, an annual black alumni weekend, and a variety of \"Black Awakening\" activities. It served as the home of the Kuumba Singers, a student choir led by black music historian Hubert E. Walters, of Black Cast, a student theater experiment, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Afro- American Dance Theater. The Center also sponsored a lecture by Guinier in 1972 on \"Black Studies, Black Labor and Black Liberation\".</p> <p>Student activities in this subseries refer primarily to the 1969 \"Painters' Strike\" and a 1972 campaign led by PALC and Afro to pressure Gulf Oil to provide better wages for its black employees in Angola. These files consist mainly of statements by the university and the organizations involved, and newspaper clippings. The Painters' Strike was called unilaterally by the students to protest against Harvard's hiring practices which discriminated against blacks in the construction industry. It amounted to a series of demonstrations, building takeovers and sit-ns organized by the Organization of Black Unity. The students demanded that 20 percent of the workers and contractors hired for university construction projects be black. Some 100 students were suspended for their participation in the strike and ensuing demonstrations. The 1972 campaign against Gulf Oil included the occupation of Massachusetts Hall in Harvard Yard by members and friends of PALC and Afro, in protest of Harvard's ownership of 680,000 shares of Gulf Oil stock. The two student organizations had called on Harvard to divest totally of the $21 million in Gulf stock which, they felt, was facilitating \"the slaughter of Africans seeking freedom in the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique.\" Gulf was the largest American investor in the Portuguese colonies and Harvard was its largest university shareholder. The takeover lasted six days. More than 2,000 Harvard students voted a five day solidarity strike with the students inside Massachusetts Hall. Guinier donated $500 to PALC and issued a solidarity statement in which he asserted that \"historically, Harvard has been on the negative side of the aspirations of black people\".</p>"}