History of Project 500

Project 500 was the first major attempt by the Urbana campus to provide equal educational opportunity for all children of families in Illinois.

In 1968, following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., students and community residents pressed the university to enroll students traditionally underrepresented on campus. Ultimately, 565 newly admitted African American and Latino students began as U. of I. students that year.

Students came from all over the country, but primarily from Chicago, New York, Central Illinois, Philadelphia, East St. Louis, & Mississippi. The history of campus was changed forever as a result of Project 500.

By the spring of 1967, the civil rights movement, the student movement, legal rulings, media coverage, public policy and violence had created a national and local environment amendable to change.

In 1968 there was considerable ferment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Demands for equality of opportunity came from inside and outside the academy.

The Black Arts movement was accelerating. Blacks began to wear Dashikis, and Afro hairstyles, to express the new found consciousness. The Black Arts Movement intersected nicely with requests and demands for a cultural center.

“Cocooning” by black students and the lack of recreational facilities and programming for black youth became an additional local concern.

The response by University of Illinois administrators and faculty to this ferment was uneven. Some were proactive and some had to be helped along by the urgency of the moment or by political pressure.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign established the Afro-American Cultural Center as a “support” to the special educational opportunities initiative, commonly referred to as “Project 500.”