Students lower flag to commemorate assassination of Malcolm X

About 20 students – mostly from the Douglass Association – broke the lock on the flagpoles and lowered them to half-mast to commemorate the 4th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. The Douglass Association had previously asked permission from the administration to lower the flags, but the request was refused. A group of opposing white students later raised the flags back up, only to have the Black students – supported by a number of sympathetic whites – lower them again. A tense three-hour confrontation between the two groups ensued.