March 1, 1954\nAn early morning slumber deadens IU.\nThrough the darkness, five students creep with their arsenal of protest in hand. \nWhen dawn breaks on IU's historic grounds, it uncovers the sea of green. The green pamphlets and the green buttons won't create an instant media frenzy. Those are more typical symbols of student unrest.\nIt's the campus full of students wading to class through thousands of green chicken feathers. \nIt's a symbol of protest that couldn't be further from typical.\nIt's the birth of the green feather movement that would throw IU into the eye of a national storm of controversy.
Robin Hood's Merry Men\nThe age of McCarthy. \nWhen people shot first and asked questions later. When works of literature received more attention for being "red" than they did for being read.\nWisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy sent the country into a frenzy with a supposed list of communists who had seeped through America's cracks. In these times, it was better to be declared dead than to be declared a communist.\nGraduate student Edwin Napier, senior Jeanine Carter, juniors Bernie Bray and Blas Davila and sophomore Mary Dawson traveled a road unscathed that March morning. Standing firmly on the grounds of their Baptist beliefs, they stared American persecution in the face and fought against McCarthy and his communist witch hunt.\nCampus protest is commonplace today and rarely issues any threat for those involved. But the weight that came with the name "communist" was enough to drown many Americans who carried far more clout than students.\n"It was a scary world," Bray said. "We didn't think we were going to get kicked out of the University. We had faith that IU would see it as basically the sort of thing students should be doing."\nFaith would be a driving force for the five students who spent much of 1954 viewing political and social issues through their Christian lenses. The students were active members in First Baptist Church in Bloomington and often discussed those issues at length.\nAs McCarthyism continued to grow through 1954, the students eventually concluded that something needed to be done. A statement had to be made.\nMcCarthyism gave them an issue, and their Baptist faith gave them a stance. All they needed was a symbol.\n"It seemed to me we were surprisingly sophisticated in the way we went about finding a symbol to attract attention," Bray said. "It really turned into a very dynamic, symbolic process ... It wasn't like there were a few announcements. The whole campus had changed color as I remember it."\nThe Indiana State Textbook Commission had recently raised arms against the Robin Hood legend appearing in schools for its communist undertones in the "rob-the-rich-give-to-the-poor" theme. Bray and company saw the Robin Hood fuss as the epitome of McCarthyism pushed too far. \nThey found their symbol and were ready to run with it. They would call it the "Green Feather Movement" with the five involved standing as "Robin Hood's Merry Men."
March 3, 1954\nOnly two days pass before the entire state is involved in the controversy. Word spreads through the Midwest, and news organizations from Louisville to Indianapolis start taking sides.\nThe Bloomington Herald-Telephone, later changed to the Herald-Times, goes so far to say that the students are acting on behalf of the adults on campus who lack "courage of their conviction."\n"I remember reading a quote where some person referred to me as a 'communist dupe'," Bray will say more than 50 years later. "It gave me a sense of the anti-communist character of the time."
A movement of faith\nBefore Bray and his friends were being called communists, they called themselves Christians. The green feathers came to IU and got involved with the Roger Williams Fellowship at the First Baptist Church, and started applying their Christian principles to current events.\nWhen McCarthy gathered more and more support throughout the country in his attempts to uncover communist associations in the military, the youth ministry felt it was time to keep their feelings a little less private. \nBray preferred to think of the movement more as Christian work, rather than courageous activism. And it was through that faith, that the five students found the strength to face potential consequences.\n"I felt good about what I was doing," he said. "It didn't concern me much in a certain sense that people didn't agree with me or they were saying nasty things about me."\nUnfortunately for the students, it was not something that everyone rallied behind. A protest of this magnitude and on this topic was not commonplace in Indiana, and soon the Green Feathers found it hard to rally support, let alone speakers for their events. \n"There was a fair amount of quiet support," Bray said. "There were a lot of folks who were a little hesitant to put themselves on the line."\nJust eight years prior, three IU law professors were brought before the trustees and the American Legion to testify against claims that they were tied to communism, according to the IU Archives. For the 1950s, the Green Feather Movement was uncharted territory.\n"Not only was it uncommon," said IU history professor Nick Cullather, "it was dangerous."
May 21, 1954\nRobin Hood's Merry Men encompass far more than a select few. Feeling strength from their numbers, the group feels it is time to seek official recognition as a University organization.\nOn this day IU President Herman B Wells and the Student Senate deny the Green Feathers that right. They reject the group's constitution on the grounds of being too politically partisan. The Merry Men then shift their focus from a fight against McCarthyism to the right to protest.\nShortly after the university announces their decision to reject the Green Feathers, a letter to the editor appears in the Indiana Daily Student from the "Executive Council of the Green Feathers."\nA segment of the letter reads, "Indeed, we can hardly conceive of any meaningful kind of academic freedom on a campus, unless the formation of partisan groups is allowed, if not encouraged."
The effects of a half-century\nFlash forward 51 years. \nMuch like the memory of the day the campus turned green, Carter and Davila have passed on. \nFor one man though, those three months will never die. Bray continues to work in the field of political science at Talladega College in Alabama where he is still trying to "maintain and develop the Green Feather spirit."\nHe hasn't spoken with any of the Merry Men in more than 20 years, but still, when he looks back at that early March morning and the days that followed it, a glimmer rings from the inflection of his voice.\n"The highlight of my life at IU was the Green Feather Movement," he said with an undoubted confidence. "Not only would I do it again, and not only am I proud of it. I am using it as a model for my life today."\nProtests can still be seen on campus. Groups of students flock to Dunn Meadow or the Sample Gates to voice their opinion on anything from the presidency to sweatshops, yet few can fully grasp what a difference 50 years makes.\n"It's difficult to imagine the FBI paying a lot of attention to student activity at IU," Cullather said. "But in the 50's they regularly monitored activities."
Summer of 1954\nA summer breeze wafts through Dunn Meadow where protesters will call home for the next 51 years.\nIt swirls through the Sample Gates and past Bryan Hall where the Merry Men focused their petitions for recognition just a few months ago. \nThe campus has settled now, and the controversy surrounding the Green Feather Movement died with the passing school year.\nWhen the summer breeze rolls through the heart of campus, a final spray-painted feather is lifted and carried away from its long-trampled brethren. \nThe act of protest will continue on campus for years to come, but the art of protest on campus is lost with the final passing feather.\nOnly the legacy remains.\n"Indeed, we can hardly conceive of any meaningful kind of academic freedom on a campus, unless the formation of partisan groups is allowed, if not encouraged."\n-- Contact Sports Editor Brian Janosch at bjanosch@indiana.edu.
