The Duke University Union (DUU) is the largest student organization at Duke and has provided diverse creative events and media since 1954. In 1979, James Doohan, best known for his role as “Scotty” in the TV and film series Star Trek, was hosted by DUU for a presentation on film production and the future of U.S. space travel.
On February 13, 1969, African American students staged a takeover of the Allen Building, renaming it the “Malcolm X Liberation School.” Their demands (seen here) included better financial aid for black students and the establishment of “a fully accredited department of Afro-American studies.” Though the African American students exited peacefully, a large number of other students remained outside the building, and police used teargas to disperse the crowd. Allen Building Takeover collection, 1969-2002.
This retrospective, published in Towerview magazine in 2004, records some of the highlights of Nannerl Keohane's tenure as university president. Keohane was the first woman to serve as Duke President. Note the changes from Keohane's presidency that endure today, including the 1995 designation of East Campus residence halls as first-year housing and the 2001 founding of the Robertson Scholars program.
In his second inaugural address (March 4, 1865), President Lincoln condemned slavery as theft of labor and more directly than ever before invoked the brutality inflicted during more than 250 years of slavery. Acknowledging the sins of “American Slavery,” he raised the question of what was due to those who had been enslaved—without providing an answer. Meanwhile, the war continued. In Ulysses S. Grant, Lincoln finally found a military leader with an aggressive instinct to match his own. The president grew to trust his top commander’s decisions, despite the resulting increase in casualties. The brutal Overland Campaign forced the Confederates to abandon Richmond, their capital, on April 3, 1865. Confederate General Lee’s army surrendered a hundred miles west in Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. The above Union battlefield printing published the letters exchanged between Lee and Grant discussing the surrender. In them, Grant exhorts Lee to avoid “any further effusion of blood.”
Duke Players is Duke's oldest student theater organization. It has been producing shows since 1920, although the organization was not officially founded until 1931. This production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie took place in Page Auditorium in 1949, following the play’s premiere in 1944.
