{"id":21,"date":"2023-01-05T14:31:06","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T19:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/?page_id=21"},"modified":"2023-02-02T10:54:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T15:54:09","slug":"chen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/chen\/","title":{"rendered":"John E. Sawyer \u201839 (1917-1995)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Williams Record Newspaper Headline Clipping on the Hopkins Occupation. \u201cAfro-American Society \u2013 1969 \u2013Articles \u2013 Hopkins Hall Occupation.\u201d Black Student Union and Afro-American Society Records, Box 1, Folder 30. Williams College Archives and Special Collections.<\/p><\/div>\n

John E. Sawyer \u201839<\/b> (1917-1995) was the 11th President of Williams College. During his tenure from 1961-1973, Sawyer oversaw monumental shifts in the Williams Community from the abolition of fraternities, the beginning of coeducation, and tumultuous periods of on-campus student activism and unrest, most notably in protest over the Vietnam War and racial injustice. Collected here are the responses of Sawyer and his administration to the most prominent of these incidents, the Hopkins Occupation, before, during, and after the protest. They retell an official narrative of \u201cmiscommunication\u201d and reconciliation between the College administration and the Williams Afro-American Society (WAAS) protestors.<\/span><\/p>\n

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President Sawyer\u2019s correspondence with Preston Washington the day before the Occupation on the Administration\u2019s response to WAAS\u2019 demands. \u201cBlack Students 1969-1970\u201d John E. Sawyer Papers, Box 2, Folder 20. Williams College Archives and Special Collections<\/p><\/div>\n

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Statement on the gathering outside Hopkins in solidarity with WAAS occupiers to bring awareness to their demands and the College\u2019s \u201cinstitutional racism.\u201d \u201cAfro-American Society \u2013 1969 \u2013Articles \u2013 Hopkins Hall Occupation.\u201d Black Student Union and Afro-American Society Records, Box 1, Folder 30. Williams College Archives and Special Collections.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 From April 4-9, 1969, 34 WAAS members led by Preston K. Washington occupied Hopkins Hall in response to administrative inaction on 15 demands the group delivered weeks prior to President Sawyer. The incident, which came to be known as the Hopkins Occupation, was not merely a confrontation over WAAS\u2019 ultimatum, but the culmination of decades of rampant systemic racism against the inadequately supported minority of BlackWilliams students. WAAS\u2019 demands stipulated campus and curricular improvements for Black students including affinity housing and cultural centers, African and Afro-American studies programming, Black faculty hires, and increased affirmative action campaigns to increase and better support Black students at the College. Despite conceding to only 12 out of the 15 demands, in addition to equivocating on the student participation in creating an Africana studies program, program funding, and affinity housing allocations,\u00a0Sawyer\u2019s documents demonstrate how the College administration retold a reconciliatory resolution to WAAS\u2019 occupation.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Dean of Faculty Stephen Lewis and WAAS President Preston K. Washington\u2019s Joint statement addressing demands for segregated affinity housing and cultural centers (illegal under recently passed Title IX Civil Rights legislation). \u201cBlack Students 1969-1970\u201d John E. Sawyer Papers, Box 2, Folder 20. Williams College Archives and Special Collections<\/p><\/div>\n

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Williams Record Report on the Hopkins Occupation. \u201cBlack Students 1969-1970\u201d John E. Sawyer Papers, Box 2, Folder 20. Williams College Archives and Special Collections<\/p><\/div>\n

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President Sawyer\u2019s correspondence to Williams Alumni, Parents, and affiliates explaining the precipitating \u201cmisunderstanding\u201d between Administration and WAAS resolved during the Occupation. \u201cBlack Students 1969-1970\u201d John E. Sawyer Papers, Box 2, Folder 20. Williams College Archives and Special Collections<\/p><\/div>\n

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John E. Sawyer \u201839 (1917-1995) was the 11th President of Williams College. During his tenure from 1961-1973, Sawyer oversaw monumental shifts in the Williams Community from the abolition of fraternities, the beginning of coeducation, and tumultuous periods of on-campus student …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/soc16-ws23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}