In 1945, Sarah Elizabeth Ray was denied passage on a ferry on the Detroit River because she was Black. She fought the injustice, became a civil rights activist, and her case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, her legacy is being preserved in a collection coming to the Bentley Historical Library.

The presidential election is near, but it’s no time to ease up on Black Lives Matter and other social movements, says Mary Frances Berry, PhD ’66/JD ’70/HLLD ’97. The author of ‘History Teaches Us to Protest’ says the fight to change policy is just beginning.

Robert Greenfield, BS ’15, was treasurer for the Black Student Union and helped launch 2013’s Being Black at Michigan campaign. The Oakland, Calif.-based entrepreneur is back on the protest lines and finds his 20-something peers are ‘far too tired, far too early, given their age.’

Ricky Rood assesses the global acceleration of student activism re: climate change. Michigan, of course, is no exception.

U-M’s first black homecoming queen remembers her reign, five decades after relinquishing her crown.

In the fall of 1969, students went ‘on strike’ to demand the right to run their own bookstore.

As surging activism makes headlines nationwide, U-M alumni reveal the challenges they faced as students with a commitment to both causes and coursework.

Before the attack on Pearl Harbor pulled the U.S. into World War II, U-M suspended a band of student peaceniks advocating neutrality.

On the 50th anniversary of the original teach-in at U-M, experts and advocates convene with a goal to “end the war against the planet.”