BULLET HOLES IN THE WALL:

REFLECTIONS ON THE DUDLEY-A&T STUDENT

REVOLT OF MAY 1969

Dr. Claude W. Barnes

Senior Research Associate
Beloved Community Center
Greensboro, NC
336-230-0001
claudeb@belovedcommunitycenter.org
05-31-2014
Do not quote without authors permission.
2014

I. Forgotten Legacy

Ten years ago you could walk by Scott Hall on the campus of North Carolina A&T State
University and see the many pock marks and chips in the brick walls of this huge men's dormitory near
Laurel and Salem Street. 1 The historic male dorm constructed in 1951 at one point housed over a
thousand students. Today there is a memorial to the dorm and the battle that took place on the campus
costing the life of one student, mobilizing the campus and the black community of Greensboro to make an
historic stand for civil rights and self-defense.

Students today seldom inquire about the origins of the

memorial and battle scares. Many would rather forget the significance of the struggle waged by students
and the black community of Greensboro that lead to the presence of 650 National Guard Troops and three
days and nights of gunfire on this campus and in the community.
Willie Earnest Grimes, a student at A&T, lost his life the during the uprising of May 1969, a
significant part of the African American Community, the study body of Dudley High School, and the
student body of North Carolina A&T State University rose up in open rebellion against the status quo.
This episode has yet to be accorded the significance it deserves in the history of our struggle for freedom,
justice and equality in this country. Like so many other important events that do not make it to the history
books we forget what it was all about. Social and historical amnesia overcomes our community as those
who participate in great events die out or move on. As a result, the community is deprived of important
heroes, lessons, and guideposts that could possibly help us to overcome current dilemmas. Most tragically,
without a sense of history or an appreciation of the political battles that shape the present, a community
forgets how to fight and loses its fighting spirit.
Everyone knows about the A&T Four (or what some wrongfully call the Greensboro Four) and
the role of the A&T and Bennett students during the sit-in movement of the early 1960s. There are ample
celebrations of the courage of the four freshmen and there is a museum devoted to the legacy of Ezell
Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, David Richmond, and Franklin McCain. 3 Historians, journalists, business
1

This essay is based on a public lecture given at a memorial service in honor of Willie Ernest Grimes, the
only student killed during the civil disturbances known as the Dudley/AT Revolt held in Gibbs Hall on the
campus of North Carolina A&T State University, Greensboro, NC February 23, 1995. The essay was later
published as Chapter 15 in Barnes, Moseley and Steele, American National and State Government: An
African American View of the Return of Redemptionist Politics, (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1997) : 193201. I want to thank my colleague and friend Lewis Brandon for the photos included in this essay.
2
Scott Hall was torn down July 11, 2004. See the discussion on the web site of the F.D. Bluford Library of
North Carolina A&T State University, accessed June 19, 2013 :
[ http://www.library.ncat.edu/resources/archives/scott.html ]
3
The story of the long battle to establish Greensboros International Civil Rights Museum tells us a lot
about this city and strength of racism fifty-four years after the sit-ins swept across the nation. See the web
site of the museum: [ https://www.sitinmovement.org/ ]
2

owners and others seem to take an active interest in preserving the memory of the Sit In Movement and
the struggle against Jim Crow Segregation in the South. 4

David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and Ezell Blair, February 1960
Unfortunately, less is known about the events that lead to the death of one of our fellow students
and claimed the attention of the city, state and nation in May of 1969. While many of us are aware of the
role of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), the Freedom Riders of the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE), Malcolm X,
Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, we are not familiar with the critical role played by students,
community activists and organizations created in the later half of the 1960s in Greensboro, North
Carolina. The history of the struggle for racial democracy and justice will not be complete until the story
of A&T students such as Willie Drake, Laddie Benton, Gail Thomas, Vincent McCullough and Nelson
Johnson is recorded. The story will not be complete until someone records how female students from
Bennett College lead by Sandra Fieldpott, Carla Friend and Gladys Robinson tied up traffic in downtown
Greensboro for hours to protest police brutality, racism and the inhumane treatment of blacks in
Greensboro in the late 60s and 70s. The story of the struggle for freedom will not be complete until
someone records how A&T students, working people, Bennett students, the Greensboro Association of
Poor People and the tenants of AAA Apartments fought Kay Agapion --a notorious slumlord-- and won

Miles Wolf, Lunch at the 5 & 10, (Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1990), Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters:
American in the King Years 1954-63, (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1988)pp. 271-273.
3

the longest rent strike in the history of this city. 5 The history of Civil Rights will not be complete until
someone tells the story of the successful Black Boycott of the Christmas Holidays to help the Blind
Workers of SkillCraft Industries of the Blind improve their wages (at the time of the boycott the blind
workers were making 1.06 per hour) and working conditions. 6 The story will not be complete until the
role of black female leaders like Joyce Johnson, Barbara Kamara, Rosella Jarrell, Mrs. Pinnex, Adrienne
Weeks and a host of others are given their due in the historical record. The history of the struggle for
racial justice in America will not be complete until we describe the leadership role Lewis Brandon in the
Sit-In and Black Power phase of the Civil Rights Movement.

Lewis Brandon leads demonstrators on Elm Street downtown Greensboro, NC 1963

The story of our struggle will not be complete until we record the important and critical role of
radical black politics in the later half of the 1960s and early 70s; and the important contributions of
nationalist organizations created by leaders from the Greensboro-Durham area including: The Student
Organization for Black Unity (SOBU/YOBU) created in 1969 in the A&T student union ballroom and its
newspaper the African World (the circulation of this paper reached 10,000 before it closed down), The
Foundation for Community Development (FCD), Malcolm X Liberation University (MXLU), the North
Carolina Black Assembly, The African Liberation Support Committee (ALSC), the Revolutionary Workers
League (RWL), and the Greensboro Association of Poor People (GAPP). This group of organizations and
the people associated with these organizations played a major role in the "Movement" and at one point in
recent history -- Greensboro and Durham were considered to be the center of the Black Power Movement
5

Ralph Johns, AAA Apartments Destroyed: Exploited Poor Retaliate, Carolina Peacemaker, 28 March
1970.
6
Boycott Brings Answer to Blind Workers Demands, Carolina Peacemaker, December 26, 1970.
4

in the South-- and of course North Carolina A&T was the place to be the place to be if you were concerned
about the plight of Black people in America and the world. 7 This essay is an attempt to begin to lift the
veil and fog on the critical role of the unsung heroes and heroines that some call the North Carolina
Nationalists.

Joyce Johnson speaking at UNC-Charlottes Black Student Group in the early 1970s
The Dudley/A&T Revolt is an important part of history, it is a part of the struggle for racial and
social justice in this community, in this state and in this nation. It is important for us to know why this
uprising occurred so I will try to highlight some of the important elements of social context that frame the
uprising. In other words: What forces could possibly get people so upset that they are willing to risk their
lives, risk their careers, and endure the insults of the press and the pressure of an armed assault by the
Greensboro Police and the National Guard? What was all the fuss about? In order to address this
question we need to understand something about the social, economic and political context that prevailed
in the late 60s in Greensboro and in the country as a whole.
Secondly, in order to understand the significance of this event, it is necessary to recount some of
the details about the incident that sparked the rebellion. My intent is not to give a blow by blow account
of this event but simply to give an overview of what and why this event took place. This may help us to
appreciate the kind of progress that has been made and also appreciate the long road ahead. So, I will
recount very briefly some of the details that sparked this event. Why were the Dudley High School
7

William H. Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and The Black Struggle for
Freedom, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980)pp, 220. See also, Jelani Favors, Shanking Up the
World: North Carolina A&T State University and the Black Student Movement, 1960-1969 MA Thesis,
The Ohio State University, Columbus Ohio, 1999.
5

Students protesting in 1969? What was the response of the local officials? How did the A&T students get
involved?
Lastly, I would like to point out some of the lessons that can be drawn from this episode of our
struggle for challenges facing todays students and black community. What can we learn from the
struggles of students from the 60s to help us in this current era of Redemptionist Politics 8 - the era of Tea
Party Politics, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Fox News, Newt Gingrich- of mean
spirited reactionary conservative American Politics? What can the protesters of the 60s tell us about how
to fight the current conservative all out assault on Civil Rights, their all out assault on the working and
poor people of this country, their brazen attempt to turn back the clock to a time when we did not have a
race problem, to a time when black people knew their place in society, to a time that can only be
compared to the destruction of reconstruction and the rise of scientific racism, to a time when lynchings
were common, and the brutalization of blacks is seen as normal.
II. The Social Context
The disturbances on this campus and in the Black community of Greensboro of May 1969 were
the result of social, political and economic processes playing out for at least a decade or more. The
explosion of black anger that occurred in May of 1969 was the spontaneous and collective response of a
frustrated and fed up black community-- fed up with oppression, fed up with racism, fed up with police
brutality, and tired of mistreatment by the powers that be. Most official accounts of the events of that
spring attempt to paint the Dudley and A&T students involvement as the result of some communist or
Black Panther conspiracy. The local press did not try to engage in fair or accurate reporting on this
matter. Protesters and activists were pictured as criminals without a noble cause being led by outside
agitators. Nothing could be further from the truth. The "Dudley A&T Revolt", was ultimately the product
of the clash of values and will between people fighting for social change, on the one hand, and those who
job it was to protect the status quo, on the other. By May of 1969 the status quo had become intolerable
and enough people had the good sense, courage and vision to challenge the existing social political,
economic and cultural order. 9

See introduction, Barnes, Moseley, and Steele, American National and State Government.
Claude W. Barnes, Jr. A Consideration of the Relationship Between Ideology and Activism in the Black
Nationalist Movement: A Case Study of the Rise and Fall of the Greensboro Association of Poor People,
(masters thesis, Clark Atlanta University, 1981).
9

It is critically important to understand the social and political context that produced these
extraordinary events, organizations, and personalities.

The rebellion did not drop out of the sky and

people were not fighting just for the hell of it or because there was some great conspiracy of "outside
agitators" as the official explanations would allege. 10 Robert Allen describes some of the elements of the
social context that prevailed at that time in a book published in 1969:
..The civil Rights phase of the Black liberation struggle was drawing to a stalemated conclusion, and in its
wake, flowed the urban revolts, sparked by stagnating conditions in the ghettos; new leaders, such Robert
Williams and Malcolm X, who were the cutting edge of an embryonic nationalist movement, had been
destroyed before they could organize an effective and continuing cadre of followers; and finally, the Vietnam
War and other developments in the Third World were having and increasing impact on Black militant
thinking in the U.S. 11

Although the Civil Rights Movement was able to play a leading role in the destruction of the Jim
Crow Segregation in the South, the dilemma posed by the basic philosophical and ideological assumptions
of the movement were evident as early as the 1963 March on Washington. John Lewis, the current 5th
District Congressman for Atlanta, was at that time the chief spokesperson for the Student Non-violent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He was forced to eliminate the following analysis from his speech by
the march organizers:
In good conscience we cannot support the Administration's Civil Rights Bill, for it is too little, and too late.
There is not one thing in the bill that will protect our people from police brutality...What is in the bill that
will protect homeless and starving people of this nation? What is there in this bill to insure the equality of
a maid who earns $5 a week in the home of a family whose income is $100,000 a year? 12

In other words, even though the Civil Rights Movement was successful in breaking down certain legal
barriers to public accommodations these changes did not bring about basic change in the overall American
political economy. It should not come as a surprise that without basic structural change in the foundations
of American society and economy, the condition of most black people would deteriorate, the limited
progress of the black bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie not withstanding. Hence, a militant nationalist
reaction to the dilemmas and failures posed by the Civil Rights phase of the movement was entirely
appropriate. The Black Power Movement grew out of the limitations of the Civil Rights Movement.
Black Power and Nationalism as espoused by Malcolm X, The new SNCC, The Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party, and the thousands of organizations that sprang up almost overnight to fill the vacuum
left by the inability of the "Civil Rights Movement" to make significant and rapid progress after 1963.
10

Dorothy Benjamin and Jo Spivey, Chief Defines the Outsider, Greensboro Record, 10 July 1969.
Robert Allen, Black Awakening in Capitalist America: An Analytic History, (new York: Doubleday,
1969)pp. 23.
12
Joanne Grant (ed), Black Protest: History, Documents and Analysis: 1619 to Present (Greenwich, CT:
Fawcett, 1968)pp. 375.
11

In Greensboro a similar dynamic begin to unfold as old line civil rights leaders lost influence to a
new and younger group of activists motivated by the militant ideology of Black Nationalism. What was
black power? According to Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton:
It is a call for Black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of
community. It is a call for Black people to begin to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations
and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the racist institutions and values of this society. 13

While the Civil Rights Movement fought to integrate blacks into the framework of American society,
Black Nationalists and Black power advocates questioned the ability of American capitalism to solve the
problems posed by the absence of racial democracy. American Society and Culture was the source of
Black oppression. While Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers preached the philosophy of nonviolence in the face of unspeakable provocations and humiliations, Black Nationalists spoke of the right to
armed self-defense if necessary and self-determination. Moreover, nationalists challenged the dominant
cultural aesthetic and the liberal assimilationist assumptions undergirding the "Turn the Other Cheek,"
philosophy. While ample numbers of blacks followed the strategy of Dr. Martin Luther King, however, an
increasing number of blacks found his tactics unsound if not crazy." After Kings failure to desegregate
Chicago and especially after his assassination on April 4, 1968 the philosophy of non-violent direct action
lost credibility.14 The black power movement challenged the strategy, tactics and cultural assumptions
associated with early civil rights movement. The style of negotiation and go slow was replaced with
demands for immediate improvements. Black students began to take over schools and universities across
the country to demand the establishment of Black Studies Programs. 15 In many cases they were
successful.
During the middle 60s it is also important to point out the explosion of urban discontent that
became known as the riots or urban rebellions as Watts, Newark, Detroit, Washington DC, Chicago, and
hundreds of other cites burst into flames summer after summer. Apparently, a new political consciousness
was in operation in many places across the country. Black people were simply fed up and impatient with
the pace of change. As one of the many reports on those civil disturbances put the matter:
13

Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America,
(New York: Vintage Books, 1967)pp. 44.
14
Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., (Chicago: Mentor,
1982)pp. 391-405.
15
Martha Biondi, The Black Revolution on Campus, (Berkeley, California: University of California
Berkeley Press, 2012); Jelani Favors, North Carolina A&T Black Power Activists and the Student
Organization for Black Unity, found in Robert Cohen, David J. Synder, eds., Rebellion in Black and
White: Southern Student Activism in the 1960s, (Baltimore, MD, John Hopkins University Press:2013).
8

.riots both dramatized the failure of the American polity to fulfill the expectations of the civil
rights movement, and demonstrated the gap between black leaders and the prevailing sentiments
of their constituencies.16
The Dudley A&T student revolt was part of that wave of social protest and discontent that swept the
country during those years. Students and community activists believed that fundamental change could
occur if enough pressure could be brought to bear on the political system. Their efforts did bring some
changes but they were not able to sustain the militant phase of movement.
In addition to the above factors, it is important to look briefly at the soci-economic conditions on
the ground in Greensboro during the time frame that produced the rebellion. During the late 60's
Greensboro had a relatively healthy economy. However, the majority of black residents did not share in
the prosperity of the area. According to the 1970 census there were twice as many Black households as
compared to white households living below the poverty line. The median income for white families in
1970 was $10,166 while the median income for black families was $6,563. Unemployment data for
Guilford County show that while Blacks make up about 20.5 percent of the labor force, they made up over
30% of the unemployed. Along with high unemployment rates and inadequate income levels, Blacks in
Greensboro were also victimized by poor housing, inadequate government services, and ill-equipped
schools. The severity of the housing problem is captured somewhat by the observations of oral historian
William Chafe:
The three poorest census districts in Greensboro were in the Black community and 5,000 families in the city
-most of them black- lived in substandard housing or outright slums by 1969. More than 1,000 of these
units were in such bad condition that they could not be repaired economically. Horton's row illustrated the
infamous conditions that existed in such neighborhoods. Presided over by an absentee landlord who
collected rents with a pistol on his hip, the dilapidated shacks stood side by side, unmaintained, with
broken glass all around, and with abandoned refrigerators in the backyards. 17

The housing problem in the black community was exacerbated by the efforts of the Greensboro
Redevelopment Commission. The Greensboro Redevelopment Commission implemented its Urban
Renewal or what some have more accurately called Negro Removal policy, scattered thousands,
displaced numerous black businesses and changed the face of once prosperous black East Market Street.
16

Jerome H. Skolnick, The Politics of Protest: A Task Force Report Submitted to the National
Commission onthe Causes and Prevention of Violence, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969)pp. 145.
See also, National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Report, Washington, D.C: U.S. Government
Printing Office 1968; Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, (eds.), The History of Violence in
America, (New York: Bantum Books, 1969). Finally, for a more up to date analysis see DeWayne
Wickman and Tukufu Zuberi, (eds.), Justice, Kerner Plus 40 Report: An Assessment of the Nations
Response to the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder, (Washington, DC:
Accura Foundation, 2008). [http://www.ifajs.org/events/spring08/Kerner40/Report.pdf ]
17
Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, pp.224. See also, Richard Vission, Disgrace of
Housing in Greensboro, Carolina Peacemaker, February 17 1968.
9

Police Brutality and Klan terror reached new levels and confrontations with black residents escalated.
Black workers from diverse job sites were increasingly unwilling to submit to racist discrimination. Black
high school youth, college students, and parents were also becoming intolerant of inadequate funds and
facilities for predominantly black educational institutions.
In short, the late 60s in Greensboro was a period of tremendous hardship for the city's black
population. After a massive Civil Rights struggle in which it appeared that fundamental changes would
be forthcoming in reality only superficial changes in the status quo were allowed. These objective factors
combined with the change in the ideas that guided peoples interest in social change, created a very volatile
situation that eventually culminated in the explosion of the so-called riots after the assassination of Dr.
King in 1968 and the uprising of the black community in 1969 in what has come to be called "the
Dudley/A&T Rebellion."

Nelson Johnson SGA Vice-president and Vincent McCullough SGA President

North Carolina A&T State University 1969
III. The Rebellion
The Dudley-A&T Revolt changed the political alignment of forces in Greensboro. For a short
period of time a younger group of leaders and organizations took center stage and the black community
was able to achieve many of its demands. The story of the rise and fall of this radical tendency in the
black movement partly explains the political apathy, demobilization and powerlessness that characterizes
black politics today (80s and 90s). Although a massive amount of material can be found in the archives of
the Greensboro Daily News and the Greensboro Record the majority of this material is written from the

10

perspective of white racists and apologists for the status quo. At best the coverage of these events by the
local "mainstream" papers are excellent examples of crass reporting and yellow journalism. Useful
reports of these events however, can be found in the weekly coverage of the Carolina Peacemaker, a
special issue of the Carolina Peacemaker of June 16, 1979 and in report produced by the North Carolina
State Advisory Committee to United States Commission on Civil Rights, Trouble in Greensboro, March
1970.
A number of crucial concerns of Greensboro's Black community were expressed in the events of
May 1969. Black people had finally reached a point where suffering peacefully was out of fashion.
Although the officials in charge of the city would explain away the May events by invoking the popular
"Communist conspiracy theory," overwhelming evidence suggests that the causes were more home grown
and complex.
The spark that set off the Dudley-A&T Revolt was precipitated by a simple student council
election at all black James B. Dudley High School. Administrators at this school would not allow one of
the student candidates for student council president to be placed on the official ballot. That student was
me, seventeen year old Claude Barnes. School officials cited my subversive activities as the reason for the
exclusion. 18 The content of the "subversive" activities was my association with a youth organization
affiliated with the Greensboro Association of Poor People (GAPP). According to these black
administrators I was a suspected Black Panther Party member. I was certainly a black militant and I did
associate with the local black militants like Nelson Johnson, Joyce Johnson, Walter Brame, Lewis
Brandon, Howard Fuller, Sandra Fieldpott and Carla Friend. In fact, I was one of the founding members
of Youth for the Unity of a Black Society (YUBS) and a black statewide youth organization -Black
Students United for Liberation (BSUL). However, I was not a member of the Black Panther Party. In my
opinion, the Black Panther Party was too conservative and reckless. Students put on a write-in campaign
and by all accounts from faculty and student members of the election committee I won the election by a
landslide (some estimates had the number 700 vs 200). 19 The administrators refused to recognize the
results of the election and installed the runner up student-Connie Herbin- as president. This simple act of
18

William Chafes account of this incident is still the best available in print. There are a number of
inaccuracies that remain to be clarified but the definitive account will have to wait until the original
participants can be consulted. Willie Drake, Vincent McCullough and Gail Thomas were key leaders of
the A&T Students at this time and they were not consulted for Chafes account. I do not believe Chafe
consulted the student leaders at Dudley High School. See Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights.
19
I recently had a conversation with one of the student members on the Elections Committee responsible
for counting the votes and they confessed that the opposing candidate received less than 100 votes.
11

disregard for the rights of the students to select their own leadership turned out to be the straw that broke
the camel's back.
Students at Dudley High School began a series of demonstrations, boycotts and meetings to
protest the dictatorial practices of the school officials. Now the problem was not simply the election but
many of the other important grievances harbored by the students and the black community of Greensboro.
Students and parents voiced concern over such issues as the poor and used textbooks, the content and
quality of the educational process, the absence of Black History courses, the "unenlightened" dress code,
lack of tennis courts and a stadium like the other high schools in the public school system of Greensboro,
as well as, the preferential treatment of middle class students, lack of job opportunities, police brutality,
poor housing and the destruction of black businesses and residences by urban renewal.
Protests at the school escalated in the face of official recalcitrance and violence erupted when the
public spokesperson for the Greensboro Pubic schools, Owen P. Lewis, ordered the Greensboro Police to
arrest peaceful student protesters. The students were attacked and brutalized by the police and the event
was witnessed by hundreds of students in the process of changing classes. Students not involved in the
original protest action reacted to the treatment of their fellow classmates by engaging in spontaneous acts
of outrage. Windows were broken, students threw rocks at the police and more arrests were made. This
cycle would repeat itself for the next few days. On May 21, 1969 there was a massive show of police
force. Before the students could disperse they were attacked by the police in full riot gear and tear gas was
used to clear the campus and the school was effectively shut down. The entire area around Dudley and
Lincoln Junior High School was gassed with Pepper Fog machines. Students bloody and coughing, fled
the Dudley campus to North Carolina A&T State University where they could obtain more allies and help.
This was not planned it just happened.
The Dudley students described their ordeal to A&T students and to participants in the founding
conference of the Student Organization for Black Unity (SOBU). A&T students and members of SOBU
pledged their support and agreed to help the students find a satisfactory solution to the crisis. Conference
organizers and participants immediately adjourned the conference and led a march of 200 to 300 people
back to Dudley to demand the immediate installation of the duly elected student leader and a more just
solution to the crisis. Nelson Johnson led the protesters into the Dudley cafeteria, jumped up on a table
and claimed Claude Barnes is the winner of the student council presidents election and we declare him

12

the new president. The next day Greensboro Police increased their patrols on the campus of A&T and up
and down East Market Street near the campus. As a result of the more aggressive and provocative police
actions the A&T students escalated their involvement in the crises by organizing patrols of the campus.
Again, the Greensboro Police patrolled up and down East Market and other areas of the black community
of Greensboro with shotguns pointed out the windows. During this tense environment, late at night,
according to eyewitness accounts, Willie Earnest Grimes was shot and killed by the police at 1:30 am on
May 22, 1969 (see footnote 14).

Greensboro resembled an armed camp over the next three nights. Violent confrontations erupted
throughout the black community despite a curfew imposed on the city by Mayor Jack Elam. Students
learned over the police radio that the National Guard was planning a sweep of Scott Hall and there were
rumors that Armored Personnel Carriers, Tanks, Helicopters and Cannon might be used to oust the rebels.
The president of A&T at the time, Dr. Lewis C. Dowdy was not informed of the decision to sweep the
campus until the operation began. Against such overwhelming force the students decided after three days
and nights of battle that their point had been made and it was no need for martyrdom. When the National
Guard began the sweep of Scott Hall most if not all of the rebels were gone. Even so the National Guard
troops shot out every lock in Scott Hall and did tremendous damage to the students property and state

13

property. The rebellion came to a close after the semester ended at both Dudley and A&T and after a
series of community meetings and court battles won a number of important demands raised by the rebels.

IV. Conclusion: Lessons for Contemporary Struggles

In general, the May 1969 A&T-Dudley Revolt was the response of an exploited Afro-American
community and very similar to the hundreds of urban rebellions that hit the country in the late 60's.
However, the events that occurred in Greensboro had at least two significant differences. First, in many of
the other urban rebellions large numbers of Black people were killed by police, national guard and other
law enforcement agencies; the same did not occur in Greensboro (despite the excessive use of force by the
authorities). One student was killed, several students were wounded, but, given the intense level of
gunfire exchanged it is remarkable that more casualties did not occur.

20

While some observers where

surprised at the response of the students and black community to the armed assault from the Greensboro
Police and National Guard those familiar with the history of armed self-defense in the history of blacks in
American were not surprised at all. The words of Fannie Lou Hamer when asked how she survived
threats from the KKK and other white terrorists captures the mood of a significant portion of the students
and black community of Greensboro: I keep a shotgun in every corner of my bedroom and the first
cracker even look like he wants to throw some dynamite on my porch wont write his mama again. 21
Unlike other urban rebellions during the 60s, the rebels in Greensboro were able to defend
themselves effectively. Armed confrontations took place in almost every sector of the black community
including the Morningside Homes or the area known as the Grove, Southside, and Woodmere Park. Of
course, the most intense confrontations took place on the A&T campus as students and their supporters
battled the Greensboro Police and 650 North Carolina National Guard Troops. In my opinion, it was the

20

Eyewitness Says He Saw Police Shoot Grimes, Carolina Peacemaker, June 28, 1969.
Nicholas Johnson, Negroes and the Gun, Liberty Law Blog, September 10, 2013
[ http://law.fordham.edu/30743.htm ].
21

14

widespread and effective use of armed self-defense that was the key factor that prevented the police and
National Guard from inflecting more harm on the students and the community.22
A second major factor which set Dudley A&T Revolt apart from similar civil disturbances during
this time, was the broad support enjoyed by the rebels, the presence of multi-class coalitions within the
Black community and the relatively unified response of this community to the repression by the local state
and authorities. The organization and swift response of key sectors of the Black community was made
possible through the development of broad coalitions and support groups. The Greensboro Association of
Poor People (GAPP) and student leaders at Dudley and A&T played a major role in bringing these broad
coalitions together and providing the leadership necessary for an acceptable solution to the crises. The
composition of one of the coalitions was described in an article in the Carolina Peacemaker:
As early as May 2nd Nelson Johnson and Walter Brame, organizers for the Greensboro Association of Poor
People... visited Dudley Principal Franklin J. Brown. They had been working closely with several Dudley
students and concerned citizens. They urged Brown to meet with Black community leaders who had
convened to help resolve the rising tensions at Dudley High. Mr. Brown refused to meet with the
community leaders who included persons such as Rev. Cecil bishop, then of Trinity A.M.E. Zion Church;
Mr. A.S. Webb and Mr. B.J. Battle of the American Federal Savings and Loan Association; Mrs. Dorothy
Johnson and Lewis Brandon of the Greensboro Association of Poor People; Dr. George Simkins and
Attorney David Dansby of the NAACP; Mr. Herman Fox of the Citizens Association; and the late Rev.
Julius Douglas of the St. James Presbyterian Church, among others... 23

Coalitions such as the one described above were instrumental in fashioning a broad consensus of
support for the activities of students and community activists. Communication networks were established
by the coalitions to inform the black community of the progress of negotiations and to combat the slander
and distortions presented in the daily media. In this manner, a very tight relationship between militant
students and traditional Black leadership in the community was established and the attempts by the local
ruling elite to isolate and demonize a few individuals were thwarted.
While the official leadership structure of Greensboro refused to acknowledge the real origins of
the rebellion an investigation of the affair by the North Carolina State Advisory Committee to the United
States Civil Rights Commission was a bit more honest. Their comments are instructive:
Many persons apparently felt that there were no clear issues involved in the controversy. The Committee
believes that the issues involved were simple and quite and clear. The main issue was the unequal
22

This is an under reported aspect of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement. See for example,
Charles E. Cobb, Jr., This Nonviolent Stuffll Get You Killed: How Guns Made The Civil Rights
Movement Possible; Nicholas Johnson, Negros and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms, (Amherst, New
York: Prometheus Books, 2014); Lance Hill, The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil
Rights Movement, (Chapel-Hill, NC: University of North Carolina-Chapel-Hill, 2004) and Akinyele
Omowale Umoja, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement, (New
York: New York University Press:2013).
23
Total Community Involvement, Carolina Peacemaker, 16 June 1979.
15

treatment of citizens of Greensboro because of their Race: discrimination in housing, employment,

education, and the delivery of services, coupled with institutional racism and the unresponsiveness of the
official system. 24

What does the Dudley-A&T Revolt tell us about the nature of our contemporary situation? Can
we learn something from a consideration of these events that happened some forty-five years ago? 25 In my
opinion, the disappearance of black activism of the type that provided the organizational context for the
Dudley A&T Revolt is a tragic event in our modern history. It signals the demobilization of radical black
politics, the narrowing of the meaning of politics, the growth of disorganization in the black community,
and the crippling of the ability of blacks to effectively respond to racial oppression. You may not like the
radical politics pursued by the students, activists and organizations associated with this period. You may
think that their tactics are ill suited for the times that we live in today. However, credit must be given to
the students, their followers and supporters because they were able to put pressure on the American State.
They were able to broaden our understanding of political participation beyond the narrow confines of
electoral politics. The protesters of the 60s demonstrated that voting is important but it is not enough.
Increasing the number of black and progressive elected officials is important but this alone will not
generate the kind of pressure needed to sustain creative social change. These efforts need to be combined
with protest politics to open up space in the American polity for structural change and to hold elected
officials accountable for their actions.
During the 60s revolts, the activism, courage and commitment of the students created new job
opportunities, opened government boards and commissions to appointments of representatives from the
locked out and the left out. The radicalism of the student and community activists created the tension
necessary for progressive social change and the maintenance of some of our most cherished institutions
such as this university. Would A&T still be a predominately black institution if not for the many protests,
marches, and Black Mondays organized by the radical element in black politics?

26

Today the inability of the black community to place significant pressure on the American State is
partly responsible for the success of those who suggest that the struggle for racial democracy in America is
just one more special interest claim. Black politics and black leadership is in disarray. Those concerned
about progressive social and economic change need to find a way to broaden the definition of politics for
24

North Carolina State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, Trouble in
Greensboro: A Report of an Open Meeting Concerning the Disturbances at Dudley High School and at
North Carolina A&T State University, (NCSAC: Raleigh, North Carolina, March 1970) pp. 15.
25
This confrontation took place some 45 years ago. This paper was originally published in 1997.
26
National Black College Conference Maps Out Survival Strategy The African World, April 28, 1973
16

this time frame, for this generation. We cannot leave the political arena to Governor Pat McCory, Rush
Limbaugh, the commentators of Fox News, and neo-liberals like President Barack Obama, Hillary and
Bill Clinton. 27 Politics plays a large role in determining our future and we cannot let that future be limited
by those who are hostile to our interests. Interacting with Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis or
watching CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the Jon Steward Show, David Letterman, The Tonight Show, the
Colbert Report or the Oprah Winfrey show on a regular basis does not constitute political engagement.
Simply focusing on self help schemes does not engage the question of structural inequality and
dispossession.
Government policy creates a human impact and the stakes are high in this contest for who will
shape public policy. The 60s generation did their best to make this a better world for future generations.
In many ways we succeed but in many ways we/they failed. We put pressure on the American state; we
exercised our democratic birth right as full citizens of this polity. For a variety of reasons we were not
able to sustain the movement. Official government repression (COINTELPRO) 28, Co-optation 29 (the
phony War on Poverty30) and internal ideological confusion all played a role in the destruction of the
movement. 31 It is now time for the next generation to take up the awesome challenges of black politics in
the post civil rights America. That is the legacy of student revolt and the death of Willie Grimes. As Ella
Baker eloquently put the matter some years ago "We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest." It is time for
a new era of student revolt.32

27

See Adolph Reed, Jr., Nothing Left: The Long, Slow Surrender of American Liberals, Harpers
Magazine, (March 2014) pp 28-36.
28
Kenneth OReilly, Racial Matters: The FBIs Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972, (New York: The
Free Press, 1989).
29
Adolph Reed, Jr., Black Particularity Reconsidered, Telos, no.39, (Spring 1979)pp. 71-93.
30
Frances Fox Piven and Ricahrd A. Cloward, Poor Peoples Movements: Why They Succeed, How They
Fail, (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
31
Alex Willingham, California Dreaming: Eldridge Cleavers Epithet to the Activism of the Sixties,
Endarch, vol. 1, no. 3 (Winter 1976)pp. 1-23.
32
There does appear to be a new interest in the Black Power phase of the Civil Rights Movement. See for
example, Damien M. Sojoyner, Black Radicals Make for Bad Citizens: Undoing the Myth of the School
to Prison Pipeline, Berkeley Review of Education, vol. 4, no. 2, (2013) pp. 241-263; Peniel Joseph, ed.,
The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era, (New York: Routledge Press,
2006); Peniel Joseph, Waiting Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America,
(New York: Owl Books, 2007); Peniel E. Joseph, The Black Power Movement: A State of the Field,
Journal of American History, (2009); Peniel E. Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to
Barack Obama, (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2010); Karen Ferguson, Top Down: The Ford
Foundation, Black Power, and the Reinvention of Racial Liberalism, ( Philadelpia: Pennsyvania Press,
2013).
17

Three national leaders of the Black Power Phase of the Civil Rights Movement: Stokely Carmichael,
(Kwame Toure), Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) and H. Rap Brown (Jamil Al-Amin).

Claude Barnes giving testimony to the North Carolina Advisory Committee to the United State
Commission on Civil Rights, October 6, 1969.

18

Claude Barnes and other students from Malcolm X Liberation University working with the SkillCraft
Industries of the Blind Workers Strike 1970.

Nelson Johnson, Executive Director of Beloved Community Center participates in Moral Monday March

William Barber, II, Nelson Johnson at Moral Monday

The Movement Continues!

19