As the site of a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. and the
shooting of two members of the Black Panthers, black history month
has special significance to UCLA.
King’s speech on April 27, 1965 drew a crowd of 5,000
people to the bottom of Janss Steps.
“It is indeed a pleasure to take time out from the daily
struggle for honesty and human integrity in the South to speak with
college students,” King said, as reported by the Daily Bruin
on April 28, 1965.
“The concept that time will heal the wounds and solve the
problems must be put down. Time is neutral and may act
constructively or destructively, the latter in the area of civil
rights,” King said. “For civil rights, the time is
always right.”
Lyle Timmerman, then-executive officer of Student and Campus
Life, was present during King’s speech.
“Dr. King’s speech was very moving and
inspirational,” he told the Daily Bruin in January of 2002.
“It was delivered at a time when the campus was very
politically active, and the crowd was receptive and
supportive.”
Both students and the university donated money to King’s
efforts. Students staffed tables throughout campus and collected a
total of $747.98, which King said he would use for the voter
registration drive.
King’s speech came only months before Congress enacted the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was implemented in order to stop
state disenfranchisement.
Los Angeles saw a flurry of activity from civil rights
organizations in the late 1960s that spilled over onto the UCLA
campus.
Tensions between the Black Panther Party and United Slaves, two
black political and social organizations, already existed. The
groups were competing for sway over the communities of Los
Angeles.
“A rivalry between the two groups was fueled by
personality clashes, ideological differences and provocations by
FBI counterintelligence measures,” UCLA history Professor
Scot Brown told UCLA Today in December 2003.
“By late 1968 and early 1969, the UCLA Black Student Union
became a major forum for both groups to compete for
influence,” wrote Brown in his book, “Fighting for
US.”
UCLA was in the spotlight once more in 1969 when two Black
Panthers were shot in Campbell Hall in a dispute over who would
head UCLA’s new African American Studies Center.
Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, leaders in the Black Panther
Party and UCLA students, were killed “while the two were in
an altercation involving an US member, Harold Jones-Tawala,”
Brown wrote. “The shoot-out had an immediate crippling effect
on the Black Congress.”
The alleged shooter was never found, but brothers George
Ali-Stiner and Larry Watani-Stiner were convicted for conspiracy to
commit murder and second-degree murder. The brothers escaped from
prison, but in 1994 Watani-Stiner turned himself in.