SEEK's legal foundations came from New York State Assembly members
Shirley Chisholm and
Percy Sutton (the eventual program namesake), who led a 1966 "midnight walk" or "midnight march" in Albany to the
Dewitt Clinton Hotel room of Speaker
Anthony J. Travia. amid the
reapportionment revolution, and they established the
New York State Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus at that late-night meeting with the funding of SEEK as their initial legislative demand, that they had earlier worked out as an amendment at the Harlem office of the
New York Amsterdam News. It was attached as a condition for passing the much larger City University Supplemental Aid and Construction Act that had first been proposed in the New York State Senate chamber by
Manfred Ohrenstein. Buffalo-based
Arthur Eve joined Chisolm and Sutton as sponsors of the legislation. SEEK is historically seen as an early
affirmative action program, but without being based on
explicit racial criteria. The first year's cohort was just 113 students, and funds flowed through the
New York City Comptroller. SEEK, with its original stated goal "To advance the cause of equality of educational opportunity", SEEK has also been acknowledged by Congress as an influence on the
Federal TRIO Programs. After Sutton's death at the end on 2009, Assembly member
Keith L. T. Wright (at the urging of a retired Eve) sponsored a bill renaming the program after him, which passed into law in July 2010 during the
198th New York State Legislature. == Implementation ==