Victory over racist harassment at U of Missouri

University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe was forced to step down Nov. 9 as a result of widespread protests led by a Black rights group called ConcernedStudent1950 (named for the first year Black students were allowed to attend the school). The college’s football team and many students and faculty joined the protests. Wolfe had dragged his feet responding to incidents of racist harassment on campus. Only 7 percent of the more than 35,000 students are Black.

Payton Head, president of the Missouri Students Association, who is African-American, reported Sept. 12 that he had faced racist heckling. Students protested at the school’s October homecoming parade against Wolfe’s failure to respond.

National attention exploded when the school’s Black football players, backed by the coach and the entire team, above, refused to play until Wolfe left.

“You saw what we did here,” Jonathan Butler, a Black graduate student, told several hundred students and faculty on the Carnahan Quad after Wolfe resigned. Butler had launched a hunger strike Nov. 2 after a swastika was drawn in human feces in a dorm. “We chose to fight for our community. We chose to do what was right.” Butler and other Missouri students joined protests in Ferguson to demand cop Darren Wilson be indicted for killing Michael Brown last year.

— JOHN STUDER