(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hey, y'all, I'm Kiara Butler, and welcome to "Generation Rising," where we discuss hard-hitting topics that our diverse communities face every day.

And today, we'll be talking about the historic Taft Hall Takeover of 1992 that took place at the University of Rhode Island.

We have exciting guests weighing in on the conversation today.

I like to welcome Lanre Ajakaiye, chief development officer at the United Way of Rhode Island, and founder of 25 Bough Street, Malcolm Anderson, educator, father and spokesperson of the Black Student Leadership Group.

And last but not least, Cristobal Bustos, the documentary filmmaker behind "A Voice Was Heard."

How y'all doing today?

- [Lanre] Hey, Kiara.

How are you?

- You know, I'm making it out on these streets.

What about you?

- Doing well.

Doing well.

- It's our first time having three guests, I think.

So you all must be really special, right?

Yes, no, maybe so, doing important work?

- We'll let you give us that title.

- Okay, all right.

So Taft Hall, 1992, take us back.

What happened then?

- A voice was heard.

We came together as students and basically identified, spoke about shared information that had been discussed for years.

I guess what was odd about it was that we were just regular students, you know, going down to dorms, going to basketball games, just living a regular college life.

And we saw that there was a quote on the side of the library that was basically sandblasted, we'd like to say.

And the quote basically was a Malcolm X quote that was twisted to say something that didn't really represent what Malcolm X felt.

It basically said, talked about, "If I could just read books all day," you know, but it didn't really capture what he was going through at the time.

So we kind of looked at that like, "Wow, that's pretty disrespectful to put something on the side of a library that doesn't really capture the meaning and the context of what Malcolm X was actually going through at that particular time."

So that conversation led to a number of different things that kind of evolved after that.

- Yeah, and beyond the evolution of what happened, the context behind it is that there were a myriad of things going on at the university at the time, what I would consider a powder keg at the time.

So that's the context behind what also led up to it beyond the years that were brewing.

Beyond that as well, the other thing that happened at that time quietly was a transformation and what I would say an immersion in leadership that you can't get without moments like that.

- Well, not given their God-given human rights.

It's not about civil rights, you know?

It's about the human rights that we are all deserved of.

They're not getting 'em here.

And they're talking about everybody in this room, everybody.

I mean, we got all sorts of programs, issues, resources, funds.

But how about the funding for the people here?

The people that are in this room, you know, they pay their tuition, they take out the loans, give 'em some facts.

Why is the university digging in their pockets?

Everybody in this room is gonna empty out their pockets for this university.

What if the university dig in their pockets and give something back to the people here?

(gathering cheering) - You know, if I think about the 200+ students that were there at the time and who they are today and what they do today, you can trace a lot of that, at least for myself, I can trace a lot of the lessons that I learned about leadership, wasn't in a book.

It was in that moment in the Taft Hall Takeover.

Just organization, you know, how you get beyond group think, how dynamics of groups work, you know?

So that also happened within this movement that, you know, was way beyond the University of Rhode Island, Kiara.

This is a national movement that wouldn't have been known, and thank you for "Generation Rising" and Kiara for covering it, wouldn't have been known unless we had done the documentary.

- Mm-hmm.

And so it didn't start as a takeover though, right?

- No.

- No.

- It actually, well, good question.

So it started with us looking deeper within ourselves because in order, you know, you can't question someone else unless you question yourself.

So as we were questioning the university, we were also questioning ourselves in terms of how we related to each other.

We were disrespecting each other on campus, you know, how we were treating our young ladies on campus, how professors were engaging with us.

So we actually went, remember, we went into the Woods, we call it.

We went to, what's the Alton Jones?

- Alton Jones, yeah.

- We went to Alton Jones and basically had a session.

You know, we argued, we stormed, we processed a lot of feelings about how we were feeling and how we were dealing with each other.

And that led to a higher level of questioning.

Because now you can't hold someone else accountable unless you hold yourself accountable.

I think that's what was really magical about what happened with the BSLG, because it was amebic.

It started with us questioning ourself, then questioning the university, and then we were able to really put pen to paper and really talk about, you know, what are the things that we're experiencing at the University of Rhode Island, and how do we rectify those things?

You know, so we put together our 14-point plan, and then history went on from there.

- And in all movements, there's a framing of movements, typically, if you look at successful social movements, right?

So our framing was framed by many individuals, and definitely have to, you know, give them a shout out.

Dr. Earl, the late Dr. Earl Smith, Chuck Watson at Gibbons, who had decades of experience with the university and different instances.

And because of that, it gave us a different ability to organize and form, formed by the fact that they had history and decades of experience with some of the things that we were dealing with as well.

So in that, you know, Alton Jones, which Malcolm said, you know, it was, you know, think, I'm a sophomore at this time, Kiara, right?

I'm only 19.

I've never been part of something like this.

And the ramifications of being part of something like this, we were well told it could well equal us being imprisoned as students, right?

I remember calling my mom and telling her, I said, "Mom, you know, I'm not sure what's gonna happen, but what I know is that this is right, and we have to go forth with it."

But it was framed by that as well.

So, you know, Mark Hodge, there were many people who helped this movement.

- Tony Demora.

- The late to Tony Demora, who helped frame this movement.

And it wasn't all Black students.

So the BSLG would be a misnomer.

You would think it was all Black students, but it was some of the most successful leaders of our day.

People like, you know, Victor Capion that went over to change Central Falls schools.

Melba Dapina.

There were many leaders that were part of this that came together that were Cape Verdean, that were Latinx, in the BSLG movement with a predominant amount of members being Uhuru Sasa and talent development students.

- How would you say the URI leadership responded to the 14-point plan?

- Good question, wow.

Okay, so you have to, I guess it's been 30 years in reflecting back, we were carrying a legacy that had been discussed years prior to us.

So the research that we did was really intricate.

The way we maneuvered was really intricate.

So leadership, the questions they were asking was, "Who put you up to this?

You know, why is this happening?

Go back to your dorm."

Like, you know, just little subtleties.

But you have to keep in mind, again, like Lanre said, we were kids, you know, 19, 20 years old, and when an adult says something to you, you kind of take it literally, and you're like, "All right, well, maybe we should just go back to our dorm and be content with what we have."

But I think the beauty of what we did was we stayed together, we communicated, we articulated this message, even though everybody didn't necessarily believe in that message, support our message, and we strategically asked questions in a sincere way.

So even as we're talking now, we look like adults, but back then we were kids.

We were kids, innocent kids that were asking questions that we thought should be answered already.

We felt uncomfortable on campus.

There weren't many of us on campus.

Why are there so few of us in our dorms?

Why are there so few of us in our classes?

Where are the supports for us when we're on campus, when we feel uncomfortable, mental health support.

Those basic things that we were feeling for a long time, we had an opportunity to articulate, express, and lift up.

I mean, everything down to waiting till Carothers left campus was strategic, you know?

So we were organized.

We weren't bitter, angry Black people.

We were calculated students of color that elevated concerns that had been happening for a long, long time.

- I was just gonna ask, like did you get a chance to give this plan directly to the president?

What happened?

- Yeah, it was great.

As Malcolm mentioned, the majority of the university took it the way that Malcolm said.

But I will give kudos where kind of kudos are due.

Dr. Carothers, who was away at the time, he actually got on the first flight back after he got a call from Dr. John McCray.

So I can say that.

- Kudos to Dr. McCray.

- Yeah, kudos to both of them, right?

- Yes, yes, yes.

- Because he didn't have to do that.

But he knew and they knew that this was a critical moment.

They knew the students had concerns.

You know, if you look at a video from back then in '92, Kiara, you know, Dr. McCray says he understood what the moment was then, right?

- I believe that there are a lot of racist elements on this campus, which is not much different from the mainstream community, which is not much different from the world community.

And that our objective is to try to change it and bring about an environment where people can live peacefully and that they can learn in an atmosphere which will allow them to grow to their potential.

- [Reporter] So what would someone review or do to help settle this?

- Well, the first thing we need to do is sit down and listen to them.

They have some concerns that they wanna voice, and we are ready to listen to those concerns.

We're ready to meet with them and try to resolve whatever issues that are present.

- So that was a critical moment.

But, Malcolm, you were gonna say something?

- No, no, I was just basically lifting up Dr. McCray because it meant something to me personally, you know, as an African American male coming in and acknowledging what we were doing, not saying that we were wrong, not saying that we were bad for what we were doing, but in actuality, supporting and saying, we support our young people, like that, and looking back and Cristobal, and he'll get to talk about, the video that he put together, but hearing that from his mouth to support us meant the world to us.

So then Carothers getting on his plane and coming back and us really sitting down to process our concerns.

Because these were legitimate concerns.

Nobody was trying to get a job.

Nobody was trying to like maneuver and strategically do anything.

It was really about the message of why are we feeling uncomfortable on campus, and how this could impact kids that are coming in behind us.

We knew the things that we were talking about wouldn't impact us.

We would graduate.

We'd be far gone before anything that we talked about would actually manifest.

But we had to sit there, we had to go into the woods to talk some things out, to come back to campus and be united.

There were things that were happening, like I ran for Homecoming King that year.

We never participated in anything.

We didn't want to participate in anything at the university because we felt uncomfortable.

We didn't feel comfortable walking up on campus because we were so few.

So the message that we were trying to put forth was really about people that come behind us.

How were they gonna feel?

How can we make things better for students that come behind us?

And that's what it was about.

- Cristobal, how do you fit into this puzzle?

Where were you in 1992?

- I wasn't even born.

(group laughing) I'm an '03 baby.

But, yeah, I'm part of the new generation, the rising generation.

But, yeah, so the way that I fit in into this is, Lanre was the one that reached out to me about this project.

So at the time, I was a sophomore.

I was just roaming around the URI campus, just passing by the library without like no clue what that quote meant, you know?

And like when I was first approached with this idea and like this piece of history that like not really my generation knows about, it was kind of like, "Wow, this story needs to be told."

You know?

So when Lanre approached about this to me, this is like so new to me.

I came from shooting basketball mix tapes.

And I wanted to dive deeper into the storytelling side of things.

So I saw it as a great opportunity, you know?

And meeting Lanre, getting like the whole project started, he connected me to a lot of good people.

You know, I got to meet Chuck Watson who connected me to President Carothers, Dr. McCray, Malcolm, a lot of other people that interviewed throughout the process.

Chuck connected me to John Peterson, who helped me out a lot like editing-wise, like how to get the shots and all that kind of stuff.

So there was so many people in this process, but I was the one that was able to put it all together and able to execute it.

- And shout out to him because we're all in different places, right?

So you have some people that are in Providence.

I'm in Maryland, right?

So we're using technology that we learned over Covid (laughs) to connect, real time.

So we had meetings.

We had times that we could really process and discuss history because, again, it's 30 years ago.

So there are a lot of things that, timelines that don't totally line up.

So it really took the will of the group to really move forward.

And I really want to expound on that.

We're sitting here as three people.

There are a lot of people that are not here right now.

- Absolutely.

- And I even feel sometimes uncomfortable being a quote/unquote "spokesperson" because I'm one person of many.

People actually put their education on the line.

Some people failed out because of the time that they put in crafting the message of the Black student leadership group.

So I'll always lift them up, you know, to the highest of heights because they sacrificed their education.

So for Cristobal to come to put that message together, to reel things as a student, so he's going to classes, he's doing everything that a student is supposed to do, which is ultimately graduate, put all of that on the line, just like we put ours on the line to craft that message means so much.

So to this day, I just give this young man so much credit.

- Yes, kudos to you.

Like what changes have you all seen, whether it was immediately after the takeover or even now, 30 years later?

- Oh my gosh, so the first thing I want to say is kudos to Cristobal again.

It was important for Cristobal just to add this piece because he's also a talent development student.

So I thought that was particularly great that he did it.

And, you know, the changes we've seen, Kiara, are immense.

You know, as a sophomore that day, I argued for two things.

So my points were the Minority Cultural Center being in the middle of campus.

And for context, you know, at that time, we had to go to a house that was all the way at the outskirts of campus.

And we would walk up hills in snow and sludge.

And the house wasn't safe.

It eventually got condemned.

You know, there was creaks, there was lead in the house.

So we were fighting for a house like everybody else had and for it to be in the middle of campus.

Beyond that, I fought for African American studies to be a major.

So those two things, when you ask, you know, what are some of the changes that you've seen today, those are some of the changes that we've seen today.

To Malcolm's point, you can't know what's going to happen in the future based on what you work on today.

You know, my youngest brother, which we're 12, 13 years removed, actually worked at the Minority Cultural Center and took African American studies as a major.

So there are, to Cristobal's point about, you know, going beyond or by the quote and not knowing the context behind it.

There are thousands of students who have taken classes, who have used the Minority Cultural Center, who have benefited from a lot of the 14 points, which were achieved, who didn't know until this documentary was done.

Yeah.

- How did you all prioritize?

We keep saying 14 points, and I wanna know, how did you prioritize 14?

How did you get to 14?

What happened to 20?

- Well, good, great question.

So we knew we couldn't just have a TV opportunity.

That was the big thing.

You know, we had to make sure that there were some things that were memorialized.

There were some things that we could measure to make sure that things were actually progressing the way that we wanted to.

So putting those points together, again, these are not just students that are haphazardly asking questions and shouting from the hilltop about things that are problems that are on campus.

We strategically picked those points because they most impacted our lives.

So African-American studies as a major was very, very important.

We talked about students going to other campuses.

Because we were on this majority white campus, and we didn't see a lot of who we were, we wanted to have an exchange with the Howard Universities, the Hampton Universities, so that our students can actually see what life was like on other campuses.

Affirmative Action, right?

It was abysmal at the time.

I mean, well, one of the things that really pushed me forward was I was harassed on campus.

So I'm sitting, you know, on the side of the road.

One of our rogue officers, what was his name?

I forgot his name, but.

- Colombo.

- Yes, Colombo.

Pulls me out of the car.

I have amino acid pills because I'm playing football.

I'm trying up for the football team.

He pulls 'em outta my pocket and says that I'm dealing drugs, right?

So like all of these things happened.

It was like the perfect storm.

All of these things are happening at the same time.

Not feeling welcome on campus, not feeling comfortable, feeling disrespected, all the things happening, which actually turned into all the things that ended up in the 14-point plan.

- [Kiara] Yeah.

- And, Kiara, just to make sure you understand the context and the gravity.

There were students who were D1 athletes who were right there arguing for the same points.

They could have lost their scholarships.

Basketball, football, you know, to Malcolm's point, some people failed out as a result of this, as a result of the time and effort that they put in.

So it wasn't one where we looked at it as students, even at 19, 20, 18, and we looked at the greater good.

The greater good, we knew this needed to happen.

The myriad of things that were happening on the campus, we just didn't want this to persist in the future for everyone else.

We didn't understand how instrumental what we were doing back then would be towards today.

It's only in retrospect that I look back like, wow, right?

But that was the importance of the 14 points.

And the prioritization, to your point, it had measurable outcomes that we designed as part of it.

- And if I could just extract African American studies as a major and Native American studies as a major, so you're talking, we're on a land grant institution.

Right?

So stolen land.

The buildings that are on campus are constructed by Africans, right?

So now, and I'm hearing that actually there were people that were actually buried in the space that's called Ryan, what is it?

- [Lanre] Ryan Center.

- The Ryan Center.

Supposedly there are Africans that are buried at that particular site, right?

So part of what we were doing was researching.

We were learning a lot about the university.

So aside from going to classes and learning things in class, just to stay, to remain a student on campus, we were also learning about the history of the university.

And that really led to a lot of the impetus or the fire in the organization that was needed because we knew we only had one time.

You got one shot to make this thing happen, and it has to come off right.

And it can't be with viscer and fire and anger.

It has to be organized.

It has to be respectful.

All the things that we did was completely, how do you say, surgically created.

- Well thought out.

- Well thought out so that we don't lose this opportunity.

- You all heard of, by any means necessary?

- [Gathering] Yes.

- University of Rhode Island is determining what means will be necessary for the Black student leadership today.

(gathering applauding) - Here we go!

(gathering cheering) - And we knew, like Lanre said, we knew we could be arrested for it, but it's worth it, totally worth it.

- What are some things that the younger generation can learn from this process that you all went through, the entire takeover?

Cristobal, I'm gonna pun it to you and actually say like what did you learn from this process?

- The process of learning about the whole movement itself, it was just like so much stuff, you know?

Like when I first came in to interview Malcolm, I had no idea about what was going on, you know?

Like I did some of my research beforehand, but like that wasn't the story, you know?

Like I needed to get it from the spokesperson himself.

But, yeah, Malcolm's interview was longer than everybody else.

It was like an hour and a half.

(laughs) And from that interview, I got to build the questions on everybody else.

And throughout the process, I learned that I benefited, that every student like on campus benefits from what they did back in 92.

You know, for example, the Multicultural Center, that's like the place that I go to for my bond meetings or Sankofa meetings, like all these organization meetings they take at the Multicultural Center in the center of campus.

I don't gotta go all the way to the back of campus anymore like you guys used to do to meet with these like social groups, you know?

That's also a place where I go and study.

Like if I don't feel comfortable like studying at the library 'cause here's too many people, I'm getting too stressed out, I get to go to the MSC to release some stress and like relax and get my work done.

You know?

Also something that I would like to point out is, you guys fought for a guidance counselor, a counselor of color.

I feel like that helps a lot of people like of color because they want to go to somebody that looks like them, somebody that could connect with them, you know?

So I feel like a lot of my generation has also used that to their advantage.

- And to- - [Malcolm] I was gonna answer your question.

- Sure.

- I think students should learn first of all that you're one of many, and I said it early on, we are 1, 2, 3 of many people that made this happen.

Stay on message, stay organized, stay together.

Because whenever you do something like this, people are gonna try to pluck holes.

They're gonna try to turn you against each other.

It happened, it really happened in a major way.

And again, you're older now and you can kind of reflect on people that came in the organization and kind of put salt on certain ideas strategically because they were trying to tear this down.

But to stay on message.

Make sure you stay true to yourself.

Stay true to your family.

Stay true to what it is that you're trying to accomplish.

So those are major things that stay with me to this day.

And the organization part and how you present yourself.

You know, you don't have to be angry person yelling at people in their face to get a message across.

And I think that's what was so magical about this because we went to the Board of Regents.

We really befriended some major people in Rhode Island at that part particular time.

Frank Caprio, Fred Lippet, like a lot of people that we didn't know.

A lot of this work that we did led us into the community.

So people don't talk about the fact that we were in South Providence meeting with, you know, NAACP.

We were like driving our cars.

Again, money is hard to come by at that time.

So we were putting money in our cars, going back into the community sharing what was going on at the University of Rhode Island.

Because we knew those students that are coming from Central, Mount Pleasant, Hope High School, those are kids, Rogers High School, those are kids that are gonna eventually be on campus.

So the work that we were doing was directly impacting those students that were back in those communities.

So making sure we're staying connected to the community.

It's not about us.

It's not about us getting a job or something like that.

It's about bettering yourself.

It's about using the university as that opportunity to elevate yourself.

- Well, listen, we're gonna end it on that note, Malcolm.

I think you just dropped the mic for all of us because guess what else?

We have run out of time.

Time goes by really quickly.

We're gonna have to definitely have you all back on the show.

You all can catch past episodes anytime on watch.ripbs.org.

And be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.

I want to thank today's guest, Cristobal, Lanre and Malcolm, for their time and incredible work.

And we have started a tradition.

I want you all to leave your mark the same way you left it at URI.

So grab a chock, head on over to the board and sign away.

Thank you all so much.

(chill music) (chill music continues) (chill music continues) (chill music continues)