It was the photo seen around the world — a group of Black anti-war activists walking down the steps of Willard Straight Hall, rifles in hand and demands met.  Ed Whitfield ’70, leader of the Cornell Afro-American Society — which is now Cornell Black Students United — helped organize the 36-hour occupation of Willard Straight Hall to protest racial injustice and the Vietnam War in 1969.  At the time, tensions at Cornell and across college campuses were at their peak as groups on campus conducted teach-ins, protests and other demonstrations to bring attention to what they saw as an unjust war and lack of racial equality on campus.  In an…