Southern University Students

In 1960, 16 students were expelled from Southern University in Baton Rouge for staging sit-ins at Kress Department Store, Sitman’s Drugstore and the Greyhound Bus Station. Their expulsion ignited a march of more than 1,000 students from Southern University campus to the State Capitol. Twelve years later, a peaceful student protest for equal education took a turn for the worst, leading to the deaths of two Southern University students, Leonard Brown and Denver Smith.