Description
Letter from Curtis B. Gans, national affairs vice president of the United States National Student Association, to William Larkins, student body president at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). Gans requests that Larkins pass the letter to the jailed students. The message to the jailed students commends them for their actions.
Subjects
African Americans--Civil rights--PhilosophyBroxton, BarbaraBroxton, JohnCarney, ClementCollege students--Political activityDue, Patricia Stephens, 1939-2012Florida Agricultural and Mechanical UniversityKruize, Priscilla Stephens, 1938-Larkins, WilliamNance, AngelaSolidaritySteele, Henry MarionUnited States National Student Association
Received: March 25 from United States National Student Association
3457 Chesnut Street
Philadelphia, Pa.
Student Body President
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University
Tallahassee, Florida
Dear Sir:
We would appreciate your relaying the following message on to the Florida A and M students who were arrested for non-violent demonstrations:
"We of the United States National Student Association regret to see the turn of affairs that will confine you to a jail cell for sixty days, but you may rest assured that the student community throughout the United States looks to you with both [profound] respect for your actions and with sympathy for the situation the forces of injustice have placed you in.
The movement of which you are still a part has swept the South, and possibly in the course of time what you have started will bring a clean South in which each person is an individual judged upon his merits and not by the color of his skin, his race, or his religion.
What you and your fellow students have done is by far the most significant student action in the history of the country. The combination of courage and restraint you have show belies all those who would say that the American student is irresponsible or childish.
Your choice of jail rather than complicated litigation was perhaps wise because it makes all too evident to those who would oppose you that there is a moral issue involved and that the fight is not now of law but of justice against injustice.
May you and all who fight with you emerge victorious."
Very truly yours,
/s/ Curtis B. Gans
National Affairs Vice President
USNSA
Chicago Manual of Style
Gans, Curtis B. Letter from Curtis B. Gans to Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University's Student Body President, March 25, 1960. 1960-03-25. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/331071>, accessed 18 September 2025.
MLA
Gans, Curtis B. Letter from Curtis B. Gans to Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University's Student Body President, March 25, 1960. 1960-03-25. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Accessed 18 Sep. 2025.<https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/331071>
AP Style Photo Citation
(State Archives of Florida/Gans)
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