Fifty years after two students were killed during a protest over campus conditions, the Southern University Board of Supervisors has overturned a ban of students who were forbidden to return to campus for their participation in the demonstrations.
The board vote was unanimous after a lengthy public comment period during which several alumni who attended the protest spoke in favor of the measure.
“I think those students who put everything on the line for this university, and they were banned from this university, my heart breaks for them, but I’m so happy that y’all are going to do something today to take that away and take away that whatever blight is on their history,” said Edward Pratt, a 1975 Southern graduate.
Pratt, who witnessed the protest, spoke of the tension on campus on the day of the shooting in 1972. A student wearing a military helmet came into the union where Pratt was studying, ripped out the cord of the jukebox, stood on a table and asked everybody present to come out to the protest, he recalled to the board
“A sheriff’s deputy or state policeman threw a tear gas canister toward where the students were. The students picked the tear gas canister and threw it back, and then all hell broke loose,” Pratt said.
According to Black Past, the students were protesting poor conditions in dormitories, substandard cafeteria food and the lack of classes relevant to its student body. While the university’s administration was also Black, the school was ultimately ruled by the majority-white Louisiana Legislature. The state spent nearly half as much on Black students and their facilities as they did at its predominantly white universities and colleges.
You all have the rare opportunity of correcting a historic wrong.
For more than a month, students boycotted classes and held demonstrations on campus, including the disruption of a football game with a sit-in in the endzone.
On the day of the shooting, Nov. 16, word spread through campus that four students were arrested. Students went to university president Leon Netterville’s office to ask that he appeal to the police to have the students released. Netterville agreed and asked students to wait there.
Shortly after, police received an anonymous report that students were holding Netterville hostage and had taken over the administration building. Over 300 police and guardmen in riot gear surrounded the building. When the police launched tear gas at students as they left the building, a student threw the canister back at police. In response, Leonard Brown and Denver Smith were shot and killed.
A nephew of Smith, Denver Terrance, a 2001 Southern graduate, sent a letter to be read to the board.
“I recently was made aware that these student leaders were not only arrested and expelled but also permanently banned from Southern University,” Terrance wrote. “They should be celebrated.”
“Fortunately for those student leaders, they were able to continue their education at other institutions,” Terrance continued. “Denver Smith and Leonard Brown were not allowed to complete theirs. You all have the rare opportunity of correcting a historic wrong.”
No officer was ever charged with a crime. Brown and Smith were awarded posthumous degrees by the university in 2017.
It is unclear exactly how many students were restricted from campus. Stanley White, a 1973 graduate of the university, circulated a list of banned students, which included the four arrested and other protest leaders. The Southern board voted to uplift the ban for all banned students, “known and unknown.”
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