In mid-January 1969 the TWLF strike began with picket lines that were fired by the demand for “self-determination over our educational destinies.”
The Barb suggested that the “crucial demand” of the strike was for an autonomous Black Studies department. (At this point, even the underground press seemed to parse the multiethnic coalition of the TWLF in black-and-white terms—a fact which may have prompted the official release of the broader “Strike Demands.”)
The goal of the pickets, the Barb reported, was “to give political education to the white students on campus as to the Third World demands and situation.”
Notably, the strike in its initial phase did not appear to deter the larger student body from attending their classes: “The majority of students slipped past the picket lines on Wednesday,” the Barb reported.
