Racial Issues at University

Dr. Philip Hubbard (1921-2002), the first African-American professor at the University of Iowa, describes a racial situation in Iowa City during the Vietnam War.

During the protest against the war, which were thousands of students involved in that, there was also the Black Panther movement and some of them in Chicago were very active. Well, there was a rumor that a group of the Black Panthers was coming from Chicago to Iowa City. It was just a rumor; there were none. But some people got pretty trigger-happy, and when they saw just some black students downtown at night shots were fired. No one was hit, but that is an example of the tension which existed in the community. And where we had never had any real serious problems with action by, that is violent action certainly, by race—by black students.