President Parker

 

In the days before the 1970 election of a new student body president at Indiana University, The Spectator of Bloomington ran a piece by candidate Keith S. Parker, a member of the Black Panther Party.

Parker wrote: "Education is a right, not a privilege; therefore it is the duty of the state to educate its people. Education must be taken out of the hands of pig administrators and put back into the hands of the people."

Parker won the election.

In 2020, Indiana University reported: "Parker helped form the African Studies program. While student body president, he was investigated by the FBI as part of an effort to disrupt the Communist Party of the United States. The campaign was later expanded to investigate groups like the Black Panther Party and the Ku Klux Klan.

"Parker's student government demanded the creation of ethnic studies programs, organized daycare centers for students that had children and food co-ops to try to lower the cost of food and created the Student Legal Services program."

Parker was honored by the university 50 years later with a Bicentennial Medal for student activism.

At the award ceremony, Parker, who was a former UCLA administrator, said, “We don’t live in a world by ourselves. We live in a world with other people — so we ought to care about other people."