Student activists who first organized 50 years ago returned to campus Friday and Saturday to discuss the 50th anniversary of the Third World Liberation Front, or TWLF, as part of the four-day-long event “Seeds of Resistance, Flowers of Liberation: Voices from 50 Years of Student of Color Activism at UC Berkeley,” hosted by The American Cultures Center and the Center for Race & Gender.
The program, which included an exhibit reception, performances and many panels, was also co-sponsored by 18 campus and outside organizations and was a culmination of about 18 months of work, according to Marcelo Garzo Montalvo, a graduate student researcher with the TWLF Research Initiative.
Black, Latinx, Asian American and Native American students on campus formed a coalition in 1969 — the TWLF — and began a strike whose goal was to create an autonomous Third World College for students of color with diverse representation, not only of the subjects taught but also of the faculty members who teach the courses. Their strike lasted several months, and the National Guard was called before campus administration agreed to the TWLF’s stipulations. The full wishes of the TWLF were never fully implemented, but a nonautonomous department of ethnic studies does exist on campus today.