CUNY DIGITAL HISTORY ARCHIVE

This handwritten memo from Porter R. Chandler, Chairman of the Board of Higher Education, "most emphatically" suggests that Albert Bowker, Chancellor of CUNY, accede to the requests of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Coalition leaders. Those requests, expressed in a June 18th telegram from Al Vann, called for the furnishing of funds and space for use by the community's representatives on the Presidential Selection Committee. Over the course of Medgar Evers College's creation, CUNY officials and Bedford-Stuyvesant community members repeatedly clashed, and this particular dispute is just one such example of the several that arose from the community's efforts to exert influence over their college's development.