Play Commemorates 1968 CSUN Protest

The November 1968 student takeover of the administration building of what was then San Fernando Valley State College will be the theme of a one-man play today and Tuesday at Cal State Northridge.

The takeover prompted the establishment of the university’s Pan-African and Chicano studies departments and is considered a turning point for the campus, which later became CSUN.

The play chronicles the events surrounding the standoff in which more than 20 African American students took over the fifth floor of the administration building to protest the school’s treatment of minority students.

Northridge student T-Fox will perform in “The Times of the Furnaces,” based on a book by award-winning playwright and author Earl Anthony.

One of the 19 students prosecuted in the incident, Vaya Crockett, will be the master of ceremonies for the presentation, which will be dedicated to Jerome Walker, who was president of the Black Student Union at the time of the takeover.

Walker has been hospitalized since the beginning of this year after suffering a heart attack during the last quarter-mile of the Los Angeles Marathon.

The free performances, sponsored by the university’s DuBois-Hammer Institute for African American Achievement, are scheduled from 12:30 to 2 p.m. today and Tuesday in the Campus Theater located in the Speech-Drama Building, 18111 Nordhoff St.

For more information, call the institute at (818) 677-3311.