Silent Vigil at Duke University

The Silent Vigil was led by a committee of ten. (All names are listed alphabetically.) The original negotiating team comprised Dave Birkhead (editor of the Duke Chronicle student newspaper), Huck Guttman, Jon Kinney (president of the student body), Margaret (Bunny) Small, and Asst. Prof. John Strange (Duke political science department), negotiating with Dean of Students William Griffiths. Once the Vigil began in earnest at the Douglas M. and Grace Knight House, the home of Duke University President Douglas Knight, Kinney, Small, and Strange were joined by six undergraduates and one faculty member: Dave Birkhead rejoined, and Jack Boger, David Henderson, Reid Kramer, Alan Ray, Prof. Tom Rainey, and James (Jeff) van Pelt were added, a total of eight undergraduates and two faculty members.[12] Bertie Howard, an African American student advisor to the leadership, challenged the leaders to conduct an orderly vigil, leading to the idea of the Silent Vigil. Members of the University Christian Movement instrumental in planning the accompanying protest march, included the Rev. Helen G. Crotwell, Chris Dame, Jim Davis, Tom Garrison, the Rev. Elmer Hall, Tami Hultman, John Kernodle, the Rev. Nancy Richardson, and George Vlasits. Other principal faculty supporters of the Vigil included Prof. Jim Garrison (History), Prof. Jim Hart (political science), and Prof. Fred Krantz (history).[13] Over the time of the Silent Vigil nearly the entire Duke student body and a significant portion of the faculty participated, as well as students from neighboring universities. The majority of the Duke students who participated were white, as was the student body.[14] More than three-quarters of the protesters had never participated in any demonstration before.[12] The Associated Students of Duke University (ASDU), Duke's student government, showed its support by postponing elections so students could focus on the demonstration.[15] Also, Duke's Interfraternity Council (IFC), the Duke Law School, and the Duke Divinity School formerly endorsed the Silent Vigil.[16]

AFSCME Local 77, the union for Duke's nonacademic employees, stemmed from its unsuccessful predecessor, the Duke Employees Benevolent Society (created in 1965), which was formed for a number of Duke service employees to protect workers from unfair conditions and obtain wage increases. The majority of the members were African-American and were not only angered by the blatant racial discrimination they faced, but also their salary, which was significantly lower than the national $1.60/hour federal minimum wage.

Due to Duke's unilateral policy making, the voices of the nonacademic employees were not considered. Thus, collective bargaining, a set of procedures that aims to increase equitability between labor and management, was the only remaining option for university workers to receive fair treatment. After realizing the need for collective bargaining in order to improve conditions, Local 77 affiliated with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and AFL-CIO. However, in the fall of 1967, Local 77, AFSCME, and AFL-CIO disbanded. Duke employees reorganized as the United Public and Service Employees Local 77, which was independent and non-affiliated.[17] Local 77 was committed to nonviolence, advocating its demands through peaceful rallies, strikes, and picket lines. It demonstrated such a mindset when its employees went on a strike that ran parallel to the Vigil.

Unfortunately, Duke's administration did not recognize Local 77 in the beginning, stating that it could protect the welfare of its workers better than any union. However, the administration did not stay true to its word and continued to ignore the harassment of its nonacademic employees. In response to its workers being neglected and unfairly treated, Local 77 began to take more action by filing multiple grievances and writing to The Chronicle. In the spring of 1967, union members began picketing outside of Duke's administrative building as well as its medical center. While the school administration was extremely slow on resolving the issues, Duke students and faculty began to take note. The increased student and faculty awareness of the plight of nonacademic workers as well as their protesting efforts led to the Silent Vigil.[18]

The Durham Morning Herald was the local paper that began publication in 1893. After merging with The Durham Sun, it is now called The Herald-Sun. At the time of the Silent Vigil, The Durham Morning Herald was regarded as the primary local news source. Duke students believed that the printing of a statement by President Knight saying, "'We are all implicated' in the assassination of King"[6] would serve as a powerful symbol that Durham as a whole was moving forward in racial acceptance.

At the time, the federal minimum wage was set at $1.60. The minimum wage for colleges and universities was $1.15. However, Duke paid many of its employees far less.[6] Many considered the discrepancy to be a byproduct of racial prejudice, as most of the nonacademic employees at Duke were African-American. The implication of discrimination angered workers and students at Duke, leading them to protest for change.

Situated between Durham and Chapel Hill, Hope Valley Country Club was founded in 1926. In A Journal of the Duke Vigil, David M. Henderson recalls how Hope Valley was a heavily discriminatory "symbol of wealthy white dominance," only allowing white members to take advantage of its facilities.[20] Many Duke administrators were patrons at the Hope Valley Country Club. As the Civil Rights Movement progressed, their Hope Valley membership irked more and more students, who criticized the racial discrimination practiced by the country club. President Knight stated that "he would work to change the rules of the club, and that if he had not accomplished anything in 18 months, he would resign."[21]

As Duke's administration was a very bureaucratic institution, students and employers realized that the most effective way to implement policy change on Duke's campus was to create a committee to analyze and plan collective bargaining for Local 77 workers. This committee would not only survey the relationship between Duke's employees and the administration, but also draft out an executive proposal to introduce collective bargaining to Duke's campus.

In the 1960s, North Carolina College, now known as North Carolina Central University, was a private institution for African-American students. Today, while its students are still primarily black, it is open to all races. Up into the early 1960s, Duke's premier educational resources were only allowed for white students. Finally on March 8, 1961, Duke's board of trustees voted to allow black students to matriculate into the university. The following year, four African-American graduate students enrolled at Duke. In 1963, five African-American undergraduates enrolled. However, although Duke's administration was making gradual policy changes in accordance with the Civil Rights Movement, Duke students were bothered with the fact that the majority of black college students still did not have access to the level of educational resources that Duke offered. Since North Carolina College had not yet attained the academic status that Duke had because it was still a relatively young university, Duke students wanted to reach out to North Carolina College students to give them an opportunity to utilize Duke resources.

Duke University's faculty was largely white. During the time preceding the Vigil, only a few Duke faculty members were African-American. The Afro-American Society had been requesting, without success, that the African-American Studies Department be established in the curriculum for about a year prior to the Vigil. Other students on campus recognized the racial unbalance in the makeup of the Duke faculty as well.

On Friday, April 12, 1968, about 2,000 students moved off the main quad, declaring an end to the Silent Vigil. Four days later, the nonacademic employee strike ended when the board of trustees announced its intended appointment of the Special Trustee-Administrative Committee, which would be responsible for studying the relationship between the university and its workers and make appropriate policy recommendations. However, the campus movement against university discrimination was far from over; students, faculty, and workers eagerly awaited the decisions of Duke's administration. Eventually, Duke's board of trustees heeded one of the students' requests and created the Special Trustee-Administration Committee, which was responsible for surveying the current standing of Local 77 employees and deciding on a proper tactic to address the problems. On April 20, 1968, the committee released a statement saying, "We will be at the $1.60 minimum hourly rate [for all nonacademic employees] by July 1, 1969."[22] As for President Knight, he did end up resigning from Hope Valley Country Club. In 1992, Hope Valley admitted its first black member.[6] However, Knight did not write the advertisement in the Durham Morning Herald showing condolences for Martin Luther King's death. As for increased faculty diversity, Duke began hiring more and more black professors within the decade following the Silent Vigil, including professor of psychiatry, James Carter, and professor of pediatrics, Brenda Armstrong.[4]

The Silent Vigil played a huge role in redefining Duke's external image within the Durham African-American community as well as setting an important internal precedent for student activism down the line. Even though "stories about the 'Silent Vigil' were not carried in newspapers across the country,"[23] the demonstration attempted to show "to Black America that White America still cares and still acts with deeds not words."[24] Professor Samuel Dubois Cook stated to the Vigil participants, "I and other Negroes can go on hoping and believing in the promise of America; we can go on believing that we are going to be free someday because of people like you and all other members of this magnificent vigil."[25] Furthermore, the Silent Vigil set a new standard for student activism on campus. As Professor John Cell noted, "The image Duke had of itself and the kind of people who were in positions of power changed."[26] It showed students, black and white alike, that administrative change, even in a Southern university, could be implemented and initiated by the students and for the students. As University Archivist, William E. King, notes, "[The Silent Vigil's] greatest significance lay in the choice it delineated for those living in the tumultuous year of 1968. The old order clearly was changing. Did one react by supporting traditional values and the status quo or did one grasp at growth and change."[1] Such a difference in reacting to campus inequalities was demonstrated by the Allen Building Takeover in 1969, when students in the Afro-American Society took control of Duke's main administrative building to advocate for their rights as students.[9] The criticism from alumni and trustees resulting from the buildup of student-administration conflict eventually caused President Douglas Knight to resign.

• Closing in on the "Plantation": Coalition Building and the Role of Black Women's Grievances in Duke University Labor Disputes, 1965-1968 Erik Ludwig. Feminist Studies Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring, 1999), pp. 79–94
• The silent vigil: A student nonviolent demonstration. Crocker, Eleanor C.; LaBarre, Maurine. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol 40(3), Apr 1970, 481-492.

• Unity and the Duke Vigil: Civil Rights Challenges at Duke University by Ashley Gartin (undergraduate paper awarded for use of primary sources and rare materials with The Chester P. Middlesworth Awards)