In 1968, the first official African American organization, the Student League for Black Identity (SLBI) founded by Titus Duren, Joe Grant, Charles A. Williams and other Black students. In 1969, Black students had organized Clemson's first Black student organization, the SLBI, to "promote courses in Black History, the study of Black culture and art, and the study of Black man in today's society" and invited any student who supported their organization's purpose to join". Meetings were initially held at the Newman Center, the gathering place for Clemson's Catholic Student Organization.

By this time, the campus climate was increasingly hostile for Black students. In the dining hall for example, white students were pelting Black male students with food during their meals. The first time African American alumnus James Bostic Jr. recounted the story, he characterized the perpetrators as "the people".

In October of 1969, sixty of the nearly sixty-five African American students then enrolled at Clemson left campus in "fear and complete pain," according to newspaper accounts the Tiger reported, "Black students vacate campus for protection... to remove the threat of physical violence."  A Year earlier, Black students had returned to campus in the fall, just four months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., determined to transform Clemson in to a more welcoming and inclusive place.

An Assortment of photographs of Fort Hill accompanied the narrative, ranging from Thomas Green Clemson sitting in the rocking chair on the porch of the house to the SLBI, which used the house as the backdrop fort their Taps yearbook photograph in 1975 as many white student organizations had done before and after desegregation.