KINGSTON, R.I. – April 26, 2023 – University of Rhode Island students, faculty, staff and Black Student Leadership Group alumni will commemorate the removal of a truncated Malcolm X quotation from the Carothers Library and Learning Commons Thursday, April 27, from 2 to 3 p.m.

The program will be held in front of the main library entrance. In the event of inclement weather, the program will be held in the Galanti Lounge on the third floor of the library.

Among the speakers will be Marc Parlange, URI president; Sean Edmund Rogers, vice president for community, equity and diversity; Ana Barraza ‘95, M.S ‘04, a member of the Black Student Leadership Group (BSLG); Markeem Rodrigues, a student leader representing the Black Student Union (BSU) and Brothers on a New Direction (BOND) and Michelle Fontes, assistant vice president for community, equity and diversity will close the speaking program.

In March, the University removed the quotation from the granite façade of the Carothers Library. The quote, intended to be a tribute to Malcom X when it was installed in 1992, angered many students, including leaders of the Black Student Leadership Group, who said the shortened version misrepresented the fuller meaning of the civil rights leader’s message.

The inscription read: “My alma mater was books, a good library … I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” That version, however, omitted parts of the broader statement as it appears in “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”: “I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read—and that’s a lot of books these days. If I weren’t out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity—because you can hardly mention anything I’m not curious about.”

The library engraving sparked student activism, including a takeover of the University’s Taft Hall in November 1992 led by members of the BSLG. That takeover was the subject of a 30-year reunion in November on the Kingston Campus and a recently released documentary.

“The removal of this inscription started 30 years ago, when a group of URI students had the courage to stand up and speak out against injustices happening at that time,” Parlange said at the time of the removal.

He pledged during the BSLG reunion to have the quote removed. “Our University is grateful to those students for their courage, and I am grateful to today’s generation of student leaders who, advocating in that same spirit, continue to inspire our ongoing work to foster a truly inclusive and equitable community,” he said.

Fontes said the removal of the quote was the result of action taken by members of the Multicultural Unity and Student Involvement Council (MUSIC), which represents all multicultural student groups, and has reinvigorated the BSLG to continue to connect and advocate for all current and prospective black students.

“Students learned about this issue at the Multicultural Student Services Center, and the effort to have it removed was sparked by them,” Fontes said.

Members of MUSIC met last fall with Parlange, Rogers and Fontes seeking to have the granite panels with the incomplete inscription removed. “We decided in that meeting to get it done,” Fontes said.

Fontes said speakers at Thursday’s event will recognize the significance of the removal and why it had to happen. “There is a plan to have an installation in the library to recognize what the Black Student Leadership Group did about 30 years ago to make this happen.”