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Getting Their Voices Heard: The 1969 Main Building Takeover

On Thursday October 30, 1969, at 2:45 a.m., thirty-four Black women successfully barricaded the elevator and the doors of Main Building, taking over the building. In this act of civil disobedience, these students stood up to demand to be included in the fabric of Vassar College. Watch two of these women, Claudia Lynn Thomas '71 and Maybelle Bennett '70, as well Dr. Milfred Fierce, the first director of Vassar's Africana Studies Department, talk about the experience.