1972 Southern University Shooting and Deaths of Leonard Brown and Denver Smith

On November 16, 1972, Leonard Brown, and Denver Smith students at Southern University were shot dead by a sheriff’s deputy on Southern University’s campus. The shooting came after several weeks of protests and class boycotts over poor funding by the Louisiana State Legislature, dilapidated buildings, and little response to their concerns. The state spent only half as much money on Black students and their facilities as they did on white students in predominantly white colleges and universities. On November 15 Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards ordered the campus closed, citing safety reasons, and sent in members of the National Guard, and local police officers. On that day four students were arrested. On the 16th protest, leaders met with university president Dr. G. Leon Netterville, who agreed to go and request the student's release. While Netterville was gone the protest leaders remained in his office. At the same time, other protesters had set fire to the registration building, and someone called and reported that Netterville had been taken hostage and "Radicals" were holding the administration building hostage. 300 National Guard and law enforcement returned and surrounded the building in full riot gear with a tank. They ordered the students out of the building, and although students complied they assaulted them with tear gas; when a student threw a gas canister back at the officers and this resulted in police firing their weapons, killing Brown and Smith. It was never revealed who fired the killing shots. Netterville resigned after the shooting. In 1975, a separate board of trustees was created to govern the university.

Sources:

https://www.wwno.org/news/2022-11-14/pain-lessons-remain-decades-after-southern-university-shooting

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2018/winter/feature/new-documentary-casts-light-the-1972-tragedy-southern-university