Alumni
Samir Mayekar ’06, ’13 MBA has had no shortage of purple pride since his days as a drum line captain in the Northwestern University “Wildcat” Marching Band. He began volunteering for the Northwestern Alumni Association more than a decade ago and was elected as the NAA’s youngest president in history in September.
In the early morning of May 3, 1968, approximately 100 African American students entered Northwestern’s business office, chained the doors and posted a sign on the revolving door: “Closed for business ’til racism at NU is ended.” Prepared to occupy the building at 619 Clark St. until the University met their demands, the students wanted an African American studies course, a black student union and other measures meant “to counteract the physical, emotional and spiritual strains we have been subjugated to,” as they had written in a petition to University administrators nearly two weeks earlier.