"Forty years ago, a group of African-American students deposited hundreds of books at the undergraduate library circulation desk and declared them irrelevant to their historical experience," Margo Cohen Ristorucci writes in The Cornell Daily Sun.

"This symbolic gesture is only one of many that took shape on Cornell's campus in the late 1960s. Against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, rising racial tensions at Cornell reached a climax when a group of black students occupied Willard Straight Hall during Parents' Weekend on April 19, 1969, garnering national attention.

"After some white students attacked those leading the occupation, organizers inside the Straight brought guns into their seizure. Thirty-six hours later, black students marched out of the Straight with their weapons lowered and the prospect of a new program that would reflect their history."