How the Sir George Williams protest changed the conversation about racism in Canada

The streets surrounding the university were littered with papers and pieces of smashed computers after student protesters threw them from the ninth-floor windows. (Concordia University Records Management and Archive (1074-02-037))

In February 1969, Rodney John was a skinny biology student, with a quick smile, in a fight that would change his life. Born on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, John was an academic star who dreamed of becoming a doctor. 

Because there was no university at home, he moved to Montreal to attend Sir George Williams University — now Concordia University — where, for several years, he got the high marks he needed to get into medical school. But when biology professor Perry Anderson gave him and five other West Indian students low grades, the students accused Anderson of discrimination and demanded an investigation. "All of the West Indians in that class had ... some personal interaction with Anderson that raised questions," said John, now 77. On Jan. 29, 1969, after 10 months of inaction by the university, John and hundreds of other students barricaded themselves in the computer room on the ninth floor of the university's Hall Building..