5 jan 1968 & the hilltop newspaper

#OTD Friday 5 January 1968 the Hilltop's (Howard University's weekly newspaper) first 1968 issue was published and distributed throughout campus. 

Two of the featured articles were titled, “City Riot Control Plans Under Way at Pentagon” and “District Crime Bill Title III Causes Considerable Unrest.” The latter written by Steve Abel. 

Adrienne Manns was the editor, a coveted position. She is pictured above in the center photo--the one with the fro! The other staff members were K. Murray Brown, Gayleatha Brown, Sanders Bebura, Priscilla Hall, Porter Myrick and Linda Carr. 

According to the 1968 Bison (HU's yearbook):

"This year's Hilltop was truly a black-oriented newspaper, evidenced not only by the coverage of the numerous issues confronting black people, but also by the fact that the entire staff adopted the Afro look and by the countless pro-black slogans which decorated all of the walls of the office. And there was an air of mystery about the appointment of this year's editor and students wondered if the Hilltop Board would dare to appoint Miss Manns. They dared and the Hilltop, always on schedule and greatly expanded in size and coverage, was received with a variety of emotions."

Ethelbert Miller, an incoming freshman in September 1968, loaned me original issues of the Hilltop, 8 & 22 November 1968 from his personal collection. I will feature him in a story in November.

Please comment below. Were you a Hilltop staff member, writer or photographer? Do you remember reading the Hilltop? Do have original issues? Feel free to reach me privately here?

Sources:
photo source: Bison Yearbook 1968, Courtesy of Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, HU. Big thank you to Joellen El Bashir and her colleagues at MSRC!
Hilltop newspaper, on microfilm at Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, HU
For excellent book on the importance of style as a form of resistance, see Tanisha C. Ford's Liberation Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul (2015).