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Documentary Transcript

Lyndon B. Johnson: We must not approach the observance and enforcement of this law in a vengeful spirit. Its purpose is not to punish. Its purpose is not to divide, but to end divisions–divisions which have all lasted too long. 

Narrator: May 3, 1968, James Turner took a seat on the steps of the Northwestern University Bursar’s Office and he wouldn’t leave.

James Turner: I don’t believe that there can be an honest person in this room and on this University who cannot himself say that there is wide, rampant social separation between the races on this campus.

Narrator: Two days later he and a group of students would change the school forever.

Protestor 1: We were kind of thrown into it. You didn’t have a choice. 
Protestor 2: All I remember was bring Vaseline because they might have mace.
Protestor 1: We didn’t just go in there to protest. We had a list of demands.
Protestor 2: We could challenge the system and go after what we thought we deserved.

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