Interview with Stan Willis

Interview with Stan Willis

This interview covers Willis' educational background and activism, including his efforts to get a Chicago city college named after Malcolm X.

Notable Quote:

"But there was one demand that was made that school-the new school cause we knew that there was a new school gonna be built-that the new school be named after Malcolm X. So we started the struggle around the student demands but we focused a lot on fighting for- and I think we also demanded that the new president of the school that they make an active effort to recruit a black person to be president of the school. And that they have more black faculty. All of that was in the demand. But that was very common throughout the black student world. All of over the country people were doing that. And so eventually the name after a lot of struggle, decided to the name the school Malcolm X. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that our base was so solid. It wasn’t just a few radical students. It was you know support coming from like I said faculty and administration exedra [sic]."

You can listen to this interview or download a transcript via Columbia's Digital Commons.

135 minutes

Richard Hughey

Stan Willis