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Repeated Taunts. Although the blacks number only 250 students out of Cornell's enrollment of 13,500, they responded with relentless agitation and tactical skill. Last December seven Negroes rampaged through the administration building, where they brandished toy pistols and overturned vending machines. The demonstrators were immediately called before a student-faculty disciplinary committee. But they refused to appear on the ground that Cornell could hardly act as an impartial judge of "political action" against the university itself. When the committee threatened to suspend the six unless they showed up, the blacks turned the tables—they cited an obscure by-law empowering the committee to try errants in absentia. In sum, they claimed, the threat of suspension without a trial was in itself illegal as well as racist.
With the impasse came a rising incidence of racial rhetoric and insult. Black students were subjected to repeated taunts. Negro leaders vowed to set up their own black studies center without the university's assistance. Townspeople were disturbed by the Negroes' increasing aggressiveness. When a cross was burned in front of the Negro coeds' dormitory, militants warned that they were determined to "protect our black women." What angered the blacks even more was the decision of the student-faculty committee to "reprimand" three of the December demonstrators after all. In retaliation, the blacks seized Straight Hall.
As their siege continued into the second day in an atmosphere of imminent bloodshed, Perkins decided he had only one recourse. He gave in to the black militants' demands for a general amnesty—for the December demonstrators as well as those holed up in the student union. Proudly holding up their guns, the blacks marched out of the student union and ended their siege after 34 hours. Visibly relieved, Perkins commented: "A shattering experience."
One Hour to Live. Many faculty members concurred. Outraged by what they saw as capitulation to brute force, they refused by an overwhelming vote to go along with the administration's peace pact. Said Historian Clinton Rossiter: "If the ship goes down, I'll go with it, as long as it represents reason and order. But if it's converted to threats and fear, I'll leave it and take a job as a night watchman in a bakery."
However commendable, the faculty's unwillingness to negotiate under the gun brought a new flood of passion. What the majority had overlooked was another perception: in the view of some professors and students, the blacks had been treated unfairly by Cornell's judicial system and had armed themselves only in self-defense. The blacks skillfully played on those feelings.