Straight '69
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STRAIGHT '69 is a cinematic meditation on the effects of a 1969 armed takeover of a campus building by African-American students at the predominantly white, Ivy-League, Cornell University. The 36-hour occupation of the Willard Straight Student Union by roughly 80 African-American Cornell students was dramatically memorialized by the Pulitzer Prize winning photo, "Campus Guns." Although the takeover led to the foundation of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell, it continues to be known as the crisis in Cornell's history because of the way it defied previously held notions of non-violent student protest. The Willard Straight Hall takeover is emblematic of the revolutionary times - so what is its message for the students of today at Cornell and elsewhere? Are students today lacking in revolutionary zeal and the will to change the world around them? The answer lies in the portraits of five contemporary African-American Cornell students as they describe their alternative approaches to battling racism as it exists at the university today, and their own interpretation of the Malcolm X principle, "by any means necessary."
Type: Experimental Documentary
Running time: 27 minutes
Year of Completion: 2006
Director, producer and editor: Catherine Galasso
Original Music: Michael Galasso (In the Mood For Love, The Secret Ballot)
Cinematography: Catherine Galasso, Zach Jones, Ben Mercer, Trevor White
Featuring: Djani Johnson, Yvonne-Marie Sain, Spalding Powers Warner, John Walter Rawlins III, Justin Davis
Honors: Selected for the Regional Finals of the Student Academy Awards Official Selection Skena UP International Theater and Film Festival 2006, Pristina, Kosovo