The image of the raised and clenched fist was popularized by members of the militant Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and then quickly adopted by other white radical activists as a universal symbol of defiant resistance. The photograph below features Sandy Hawthorne, President of VPI's Student Government Association (SGA), modeling VPI's Student Strike T-shirt. According to articles in The Collegiate Times, stencils for making the shirts or signs with the same symbol could be obtained from the SGA office, which suggests that the SGA and a majority of its student government leaders supported this kind of protest.
Questions to Consider
What is the significance of the symbol on Hawthorne's T-shirt?
What message were students wearing the T-shirt trying to send?
