UW-Madison BLK PWR Coalition Black History Month Conference: The Struggle Is Never Ending (Part 2 of 2)
Panelists Charles Holley (l) and Geneva Brown
by Jonathan Gramling
In a race-based society, the indignities have probably always been there for Black students since William Smith Noland was the first Black to graduated from UW-Madison in 1875. There are the thousand cuts of small indignities and words that build up into a lot of emotional scar tissue over time. And it was striving to get an education in a place of higher education where one was not reflected I the curriculum, cultural activities or even the statues and art work adorning the campus.
It all came to a head in 1969 when the vast majority of Black UW-Madison students went on strike to demand that the institution become more “user-friendly” to Black students. Out of their struggle, the Department of Afro-American Studies — recently renamed the Department of African American Studies — was born.
But the underlying conditions that the Black students faced did not change and students adjusted to the micro-aggression once again. In the mid 1980s, there was another precipitating event, the depiction of a Fiji Islander as a typical stereotypical portrayal of an African American. This portrayal led to student marches and forums as the pent-up anger and frustrations were released once more. The result was what became known as the Holley Report, which led to the creation of the Multicultural Student Center and other measures 35 years ago.
On February 24, 2024, the BLK PWR Coalition held a mini-conference in honor of Black History Month at the UW-Madison School of Education.
During the conference, individuals from these students protest eras came together to evaluate those movements and to glean lessons learned from them. Two of the leaders from the mid-1980s movement, Geneva Brown and Charles Holley, were on hand to discuss their experiences. And in subsequent phone interviews, they talked about these times with The Capital City Hues.
It wasn’t enough to protest in the mid 1980s. The students wanted to see things change institutionally. And so while the 1969 Black Student Strike led to the formation of the African American Studies Department, the 1980s protests led to the creation of other institutions.
“While we were there, it was David Wright, Solomon Ashby, Charles Holley and I who formed the core group,” Brown recalled. “We didn’t want to just protest. We wanted to make sure that we were doing more to create an institution of changes, which included not just having student groups, but having a place where students of color could come together and feel comfortable. We eventually ended up with a minority student activity area that was originally in the Memorial Union and then transferred over to the Red Gym after I graduated. There was no place for students of color to feel comfortable and just hang out. In the Rathskellar downstairs, the minority student lounge was located. Candace McDowell was the head of it and she was a part of the operations . She was basically the head of minority student programming and also the facility. And eventually it moved over to the Red Gym. They were staff of color, so they certainly had their own experiences. I can’t speak for them, but they were very helpful for us and very supportive of our goals.”
The UW Administration relented and made the students an integral part of the committee that would come up with recommendations. Holley was appointed a co-chair of the committee.
“We spent the summer meeting and forming committees and between undergrads, grad students, and some dedicated faculty and staff tried to churn out something that we could hand to the university by the time the fall semester started. We got that in their hands by October. Sometimes with youth, you don’t understand the constraints of time. It was a pretty quick turnaround. We addressed key issues. We had the approach that each committee should report and went into the overall report that was given to the university.”
Around that time, Donna Shalala was appointed UW-Madison chancellor. She proved to be a formidable leader to deal with.
“The subtext of this whole thing is that as 21-year-old students, we had these administrators on the run,” Holley observed. “They were not used to dealing with a news cycle that was changing then and has completely changed now. We had plenty of time. We would be available for an interview. We would be available for in-studio conversations, debates or anything else. We knew that this was a fairly interesting story on a local, national and international level as well. BBC came and interviewed us at one point. We had that in our basket of tools. When the previous chancellor retired, they hired Donna Shalala. Again going back to our approach that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission, when Chancellor Shalala was hired, they made the announcement and she showed up on campus bright and early that next morning meeting with co-presidents of student government. We found out they were having a 7:30 meeting on the Terrace at the Memorial Union. So Solomon and I did as we usually did. We showed up unannounced. We said, ‘Chancellor Shalala, congratulations on your appointment. Welcome to Madison. You have a serious issue here in terms of what is going on on campus with students of color primarily and in particular with Black students. She said, ‘Hi Charles. I know who you are. I’ve heard all about what is going on here and I definitely want to meet with you on it.’ Donna Shalala is from New York. She had been president of Hunter College, which is an urban institution in New York City with a diverse student body and administration. So she had handled issues with folks in our sort of situation for years. This is not someone who is sort of used to a 98 percent white campus and 99 percent white administration. We said that we were there to let her know that there was a serious problem. She said she know who we were. And then she stood up and gave me a bro hug and Solomon one. White people didn’t do that at the time. We walked away and said, ‘We’re in trouble now.’ We knew we couldn’t keep her on the run the way we had everyone else. And so we go back to what institutions typically do. They take your product. Rename it. And change it a little bit. And put it out there as something of their own. And that is what she did. She came up with The Madison Plan. It was an outgrowth of what we put together.”
In Brown’s view, the Holley Report did have an impact.
“It was groundbreaking in that as far as we knew, we were one of the first universities to let students come to the table and negotiate what would create an environment to sustain and benefit students of color,” Brown observed. “Some of the key provisions were an introductory course about students of color and their history besides what they may have learned in their high schools that didn’t cover Black studies or Latino studies or the histories of other people and people of color. Also it increased participation of students of color with goals of increasing faculty of color. The idea was to address the critical mass of students, introducing through coursework diversity and also putting more money behind paying these students.”
With all of the attention and national coverage, it would have been easy for Holley to get a big head. He had Brothers who helped him keep it in perspective.
“At the height of all of this hoopla, people are stopping me on the street and saying, ‘I saw you on television,’” Holley recalled. “’You did such a great job.’ Especially our people, Black people are doing it. I had a fraternity brother of mine who was up here. Some folks were saying, ‘Oh man, Chuck is doing this and everything else.’ He pulled me to the side. I will never forget this. I thank him to this day. He said, ‘You know what? 300 miles away, no one gives a f**k about any of this. Don’t let this go to your head.’ He was 100 percent right. It’s real easy to get stuck in that sort of ‘You’re doing a great job.’ And then you’re stuck there in that place and mindset for the rest of your life. When I left Madison, I tell people all the time, my last 30 minutes was when I graduated from law school. Donna Shalala shook my hand. I got in my car. My clothes were already packed and I drove to Chicago. I left all of that right then. So I don’t know if any of the Madison Plan is still in existence or not. I don’t know. Probably not.”
Holley later admitted that some of the efforts like the Multicultural Student Union still exist. But he also noted that some people paid a heavy price to move things forward.
“Solomon actually came to UW-Madison to play football,” Holley said. “He was about 6’ 4” and probably 225-230 pounds. He’s not a small man crawling up into this little space. He is a tremendous unsung hero in this whole thing. They told athletes, ‘You don’t have any business being involved in that racial stuff, that race stuff. You aren’t Black or White. You’re a Badger.’ Solomon gave up his football career to stand up for our people. He’s an unsung hero. Solomon had one of the greatest signs ever during a protest. It said, ‘Old Miss or Old Wisc?’”
Brown noted that she supports the Blk Pwr Coalition’s efforts with each generation pushing the movement forward.
“The struggle continues,” Brown said. “We are in full support — I speak for Charles and I — of the students and their ongoing fight to maintain the dignity and respect of students of color, in particular Black students, on campus. If called on, we will always be available for them because we have to keep fighting the same fight over and over again with the university. The titles and the names change, but the attitude remains the same. Even with the sophistication of technology and the gains made in other areas, attitudes do not change.”
“Stand up for what you believe in,” Holley encouraged the students. “The only consequence is not standing up for what you believe in. The consequence for not speaking up and standing up for yourself is much greater than whatever you think is going to happen when you raise your hand and stand up. There are still issues to this day that need to be addressed. I don’t know what the Black student population is at UW-Madison. I imagine it is still at the bottom of the Big 10 like it was when were there. How can the UW-Madison be behind Iowa and Minnesota and now Nebraska since it is part of the Big 10. We could be a little higher than them.”
