David Horne said a rock thrown at Tigert Hall in the ‘70s sent things out of control.
Horne, a former UF student, helped organize the sit-in that followed on April 15, 1971, when dozens of students occupied the office of Stephen O’Connell, UF’s president at the time, to demand a black student cultural center on campus.
The peaceful protest, later called Black Thursday, escalated when someone unaffiliated with Horne’s group threw the rock. Police were called, Horne said.
That day, 66 students were arrested. O’Connell didn’t comply with their request for the center until 10 months later, when the Institute of Black Culture was dedicated on Feb. 11, 1972.
“We raised hell, we got spanked, and y’all got some buildings,” Horne said. “But apparently the struggle, the work is still not done.”
Horne and three other panelists, including two student activists and the former Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures director, discussed the future of the now-demolished cultural centers with a crowd of about 40 in Pugh Hall on Friday as part of the “Tale of Two Houses” event hosted by the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program.
In June 2017, UF’s Department of Multicultural and Diversity Affairs suggested the remodeled institutes be a single, “U” shaped building that would house both cultural centers.
Daniel Clayton, a UF electrical engineering senior and one of the panelists, said the design was a “disaster.” He said it was an insult to combine the two buildings, which had distinct and hard-fought histories.
“That’s what diversity is to the University of Florida, homogenizing culture,” the 23-year-old said.
MCDA’s initial design sparked student protests and the “No La IBCita” movement, which fought to keep both student centers separate, according to Alligator archives. In July, MCDA announced the two buildings would remain separate and designers would start over, according to Alligator archives.
Christopher Garcia-Wilde, 22, serves as a student co-chair for the reconstruction project. He said construction will begin this summer in the institute’s lot on West University Avenue. Construction is estimated to finish in April 2019, according to UF facilities’ website.
He said it’s a battle to hold the architectural firm DLR Group and UF accountable. He said they strike down students’ requests to recreate the look of the old wooden buildings, citing city codes requiring buildings on West University Avenue to look commercial.
Cooperating with administration has been demanding, but he said he’s proud of how he pushed UF to pay more attention to minority student needs.
Contact Elliott Nasby at enasby@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter at @_ElohEl.
The former La Casita building
