On Tuesday, April 22, 1969, at a meeting of the full Faculty of Arts and Sciences, five students brought their concerns to the historic forum for Harvard governance.

The president of the Association of African and Afro- American Students (AAAAS) demanded that undergraduates have a say in choosing the tenured professors for the newly formed department.

And the AAAAS representatives got what they wanted in an unprecedented resolution which gave students the power to build a socially aware department of activities.

"The department came into being... under enormous student pressure," says Professor of Sociology Orlando Patterson. "They made appointments under the gun, so to speak, in a great hurry."

The person the student faculty committee chose to chair the department, Ewart Guineer, was not an academic. He held a law degree and had worked as a labor relations coordinator at Columbia University.

This was what students wanted. In 1969, The Crimson reported that the AAAAS's patform called for a department of activists, who had lived and worked as agents of social change. The department "saw itself as an extension of the Black liberation struggle," says Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III.

The department under Guineer was an isolated one, according to PAtterson. Guineer rejected joint appointments