TSU Protest (1967)

Duration: 1:24

Year Published: 1967

Sound: silent

Description: This unedited footage from Houston’s KPRC-TV captures a protest at Texas Southern University on April 3, 1967. Students march across campus before staging a blockade across Wheeler Avenue, a bisecting thoroughfare. Student had conducted protests across campus for nearly a week following the administration’s ousting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chapter. The protests led to the arrest three individuals: Franklin Alexander, a national leader of the W. E. DuBois Clubs; Reverend Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, co-chairman of Friends of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Lee Otis Johnson, a former student. Students led a march to and vigil outside the Harris County Courthouse the following day to protest the arrests. The demonstrations highlighted the tense relationship TSU student shared with not only the administration but also local law enforcement. A reported 200 city riot police and 20 sheriff’s deputies encircled the April 4 demonstrators, nearly matching them in number. A month later, an interaction between students and police on campus would escalate into a deadly confrontation known as the TSU Riot.