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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Students dig up group’s rich past


Whitworth Assistant Dean for Student Life Esther Louie, center,   stands with Jeremiah Sataraka and Holly Fauerso  on Thursday  in the school's student union. Sataraka and Fauerso researched the history of the college's Black Student Union for Black History Month. 
 (Christopher Anderson / The Spokesman-Review)

When Jeremiah Sataraka started looking into the history of African American students at Whitworth College, he had no idea what he’d find.

Wanting to do something for Black History Month, Sataraka was surprised to find a robust and somewhat radical history in the early days of Whitworth’s Black Student Union – complete with demonstrations, arrests at a protest in Colfax and a regular column titled Whit Soul that asserted, “People are afraid to be funky.”

“That really captured our eyes,” Sataraka said, referring to the roundup of history he found in an article in the student newspaper. “We really wanted these people to come here and speak about their experiences.”

Sataraka and another Whitworth student, Holly Fauerso, decided to invite the BSU’s founders back to campus to talk about their experiences. Two of them, Frances Jones-Baker and Rauleign “Frenchy” Lamont, will speak from 6:30 to 8 p.m. today in the Whitworth Chapel.

Attempts to contact Jones-Baker and Lamont were unsuccessful this week.

Fauerso and Sataraka are cultural diversity advocates on campus, responsible for suggesting and organizing events highlighting diversity at Whitworth, and they’re also involved with other organizations promoting diversity at the school. Fauerso said that when they began looking into the history of the BSU at Whitworth, she wasn’t even sure there would have been such an organization nearly 40 years ago.

“I don’t think I expected there to even be a Black Student Union, just because Whitworth’s a smaller college,” she said. “We were really encouraged by the movement that went on here.”

Whitworth’s BSU was formed in 1969, and its activities reflected the larger cultural shifts involved with the civil rights movement. The group organized forums, held marches and demanded – with mixed success – various steps from the school’s administration, including changes in the faculty and the creation of black study groups, according to the Whitworthian.

According to the newspaper, members were “famous for their unapologetic opinions and prominent voice in the Whitworthian.”

One incident that became a flash point for African American students regionwide came in March 1969, after five Washington State University students were arrested on second-degree assault charges in a “fraternity incident,” according to a Spokesman-Review account of the incident.

Black student activists viewed the arrests as an injustice and converged on Colfax from around the region. Protesters surrounded the five students to prevent them from being booked into jail to serve a weekend sentence; eventually 42 students were arrested, including three from Whitworth.

Fauerso and Sataraka said they were inspired by the stories about those students, and it made them want to share the information with the rest of the campus. In addition to inviting the speakers, they helped create a display on Black History Month on campus this week.

“We’re here today because of the people who came before us,” Fauerso said.