On Monday evening, nearly 90 people crowded into the Marty Theatre to hear Jim Ralph speak about the 100-year history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Peoria. They were kept waiting.
It took 10 minutes for a student Audio Visual Services representative to set up a microphone and an additional seven to set up the projector. The crew worked while Ralph lectured.
“I brought historical photographs to show you all, but I’m not sure if you’ll get to see them,” Ralph, a professor from Vermont’s Middlebury College, said. “Don’t worry, I can describe them with lots of color.”
However, once Ralph was provided with functioning equipment, he won over the audience. At one point, many community members in the crowd pointed and murmured the names they recognized as Ralph projected a decades-old membership report list.
Ralph’s lecture covered the history of the NAACP Peoria Chapter from its founding in 1915 to the challenges today.
“We knew it was the centennial of the NAACP (Peoria Chapter) founding and we wanted to bridge the gap between campus and community, to combine the town and the gown,” associate history professor and event organizer Amy Scott said.
Ralph packed in anecdotes about action that took place on Bradley’s campus, including campaigns by John Gwynn, an activist who led students in occupying the dean’s office to demand more black faculty be hired and more attention be paid to African American studies.
“I liked hearing about Gwynn because he was more modern,” freshman political science major Erin Salentine said.
Ralph also spoke about Bradley students who protested construction of a new dorm in 1969 because black construction workers had not been hired.
“I think it’s interesting the role young people play in social movements,” Ralph said. “Young people—college students, high school students and even younger people- were at the forefront. Young people have idealism, but they also have the freedom to take action on it.”
