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Defiance-Fighting Elitism and Racism at LSU in the 70's
Theodor Schirmer, author
After retirement from the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office, I decided to write my life story for my children and grandchild. When I began writing about my years at LSU, I discovered through research that events during my time as Student Government Association president were being swept under the rug. I could locate nothing in the administrative files or oral histories open to the public that covered what happened at LSU Homecoming in 1976.
In the '70s, twenty years after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347U.S. 483 (1954), LSU was still refusing to give up its racist past. While most students attending LSU were primarily focused on obtaining better lives through gaining a college degree, some could not turn their backs on injustice. The students who fought at my side were not the wealthy fraternity or sorority members. They were from middle and lower-middle-class families and the working poor. It was my goal in writing this book to honor their sacrifices and tell what it was like to fight the system-the LSU administrators, the Board of Supervisors, and the Greek organizations in the deep South in the turbulent '70s.