Carrie Chapman Catt is a celebrated ISU affiliation. She graduated at the top of her class as a minority – the only woman – and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in three years.

Her life was marked with innovation – she was the first woman to deliver a commencement address at Iowa State, she was Susan B. Anthony’s right-hand lady, and nearly 50 years after her death, she was the cause of one major movement on Iowa State’s campus.

According to published Daily reports, The September 29th Movement began with the Sept. 29, 1995, publication of Uhuru newsletter, in which the headline read, “The Catt is out of the bag: Was she racist?”

The headline ran just as the finalizations of renaming Old Botany Hall after Carrie Chapman Catt – Catt Hall – were in the works. It became official on Oct. 6, 1995.

Fall 1995 met the Iowa State Daily with an onslaught of letters to the editor about the sparked interests and wide-ranging opinions regarding Catt and some racist comments allegedly made during her Southern campaigning.

As reported in the Daily, ISU students Allan Nosworthy, Milton McGriff and Meron Wondwosen, former editor of Uhuru, initiated the campaign to change the name of Catt Hall, citing an “uncomfortable atmosphere on campus” as a result of Catt’s recognition.

Support was quick to follow the students and their efforts with rallies, letter-writings and sit-in turnouts of more than 200.

George Jackson, assistant dean of the graduate college, recalls the movement and the students who geared the motion.

“They were organized and scholarly. They wanted the opportunity to express themselves and to be taken seriously,” Jackson said. “The breadth and depth of a movement depends on how well the movement is carried out. They did a very good job clarifying the issues.”

On March 6, 1996, nearly 100 supporters of the movement met in front of Parks Library and marched to Catt Hall. It was on this day that The September 29th Movement branded its identity.

“It was a curious kind of coalition,” said Tom Hill, vice president of student affairs. “They were students, but faculty and staff were sympathetic. They had pretty solid support from the community.”

Hill came to Iowa State in the midst of the movement, and described the friction between the administration and the students involved as more of a clash of strong personalities than a dispute over issues.

“As vice president of student affairs, my role was to find out what the real problem was and what the demands were, and then work our way through them,” Hill said. “With demands, there are things symbolic and meaningful – like scholarship aid and a better environment. From my perspective, [the movement’s] major goal was to provide support to students of color, and with that they were tremendously successful.”

Future pickets followed and gained intensity.

In September 1997, Nosworthy began a hunger strike that lasted until he was admitted into the hospital for severe stomach pain.

“Strong personalities is how you get leaders and protesters. One must be confident and willing to risk it all,” Hill said.

The influx of new support and agendas may have caused the movement to lose its initial direction, as acts of vandalism to Catt Hall and less thorough focal points staggered the movement’s objectives.

“The peak of the movement was in the beginning. [The originators] presented themselves professionally and factually – in such a way they could be taken seriously when speaking up and speaking out,” Jackson said. “As long as they stayed focused and on course with the major issues, they had a great deal of support.”

Nosworthy, McGriff and Wondwosen raised awareness about diverse issues on Iowa State’s campus for nearly three years. They were willing to put their freedom and their futures on the line for a cause they believed in – and did.

During the April 16 sit-in at former President Jischke’s office in 1998, all three of the students were arrested, although all charges were later dismissed.

“The good of the students was not the argument. It was putting personalities aside and agreeing to get busy and work it out. Ultimately, the renaming of Catt Hall may be the only thing that wasn’t accomplished,” Hill said.

The movement met stagnancy in September 1998, after the students who created the foundation for the cause graduated.

Administration never changed the name of Catt Hall and found that Catt’s comments, in time and context, were not racist.

As for Carrie Chapman Catt, she can speak for herself in this 1917 speech: “Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable an unpurchasable voice in government.”