John T. B. Mudge (AC 1971) Papers on Amherst College Moratoria

In spring 1969, student grievances led to a series of moratoria to allow for College-wide discussion of campus and national concerns. John T.B. Mudge (AC 1971), a self-described “‘moderate’ or ‘conservative’” took an active role in the series of Amherst College moratoria beginning in April 1969.

On Friday, April 25, 1969 the Amherst College faculty in a closed meeting decided to suspend classes for two days, April 28 and 29, to allow for a campus-wide discussion to evaluate the College's problems in response to a proposal made by the English 98 seminar, "English and Education." The moratorium officially began on Monday, April 28, with an open meeting in front of Frost Library, when participants would then break into four groups to discuss questions raised at the meeting. Discussions with professors were held in fraternity houses later that evening. In anticipation of this first meeting, the College would distribute mimeographed material to campus mailboxes; students and faculty alike submitted proposals and grievances. Out of these two days the College community voted on the Ad Hoc Committee's proposals dealing with reforms to the college and the drafting of a letter addressed to President Nixon informing him of "our concern as a committed institution for the existing relationship between the crisis on the university campus today and the larger ills of society" (Amherst Student, April 30, 1969).

On May 1, 1969, the faculty and College Council again approved a suspension of classes for May 14, 1969, to begin with a mass meeting in Johnson Chapel (Amherst Student, May 8, 1969). Led by the Afro-American Society, this “Black Moratorium” was intended to create a “contagious awareness of the subtleties of racism that will eventually spread through the student body” (Amherst Student, May 15, 1969). To this end, the moratorium featured a series of seminars on Black students at Amherst and predominately white institutions, Black Power, and the rationale for a Black Studies Program. Poems were circulated in an effort to focus discussion on Black experiences in the country, while the moratorium was preceded by a showing of a series of films from the “Of Black America” series. The featured speaker, The Invisible Man author Ralph Ellison, gave an address entitled “Race and the Dynamics of American Literature” to benefit the Amherst Summer Action Programs. However, the second moratorium did not receive as much support and attendance as the first. The moratorium was part of a legacy of activism that contributed to the establishment of the Black Studies Department in 1971.