I FEBRUARY 10, 19^
COVER STORY 7
f History
campus of Chapel Hill is nothing new
nee known.
A list of demands put to then-
iiancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson in
969 by the Black Student Move-
nent, called for not only an Afro-
Vmerican Studies E>e()artment, but
i vast improvement in the salaries
md “the intolerable woricing condi-
ions of non-academic employees.”
Such demands are almost mir-
ored by the demands given to cur-
ent chancellor Paul Hardin, which
ailed for an African American and
African Studies Department and the
mmediate improvement of the
I'orking conditions and the salaries
f the UNC Housekeeping staff.
The sight of hundreds of stu-
ents flooding the offices, stair
wells and front steps of South Build-
ig in September recalls the earher
:ene of Manning Hall in the
)ring of 1969, during a BSM-or-
inized food workers’ strike.
Cureton Johnson, founder of
Hack Ink, recalls the incident
“We started out picketing the
ifeteria at first, discouraging
wple from eating there. When
|ople went in anyway, we came
throwing chairs until everyone
Bt cleared out Some people were
lermined to go back in, so when
idemonstrated at 1977
:Day.
they did, we cleared them out again.
“The second time, the Chapel
Hill police came, so we left—and
went to take over Manning Hall.
We stayed up in there a couple of
weeks surrounding it with picket
lines. They called the Highway Pa
trol, but we stood there face to face
with them. Folks would call us kind
of crazy, but not only did the food
workers get a raise, but the mini
mum wage in the state of North
Carolina went up that year.”
The BSM, which was formed in
1968, was known for being a mili
tant group. Johnson was listed in
Black Ink as the “HNIC (Head
Nigga’ In Charge)” and the “man
aging HNIC” as opposed to the edi-
t(ar and managing editor. “We got
that term from the president of
Malcolm X University in Durham,”
he said.
The “university” was built as an
alternative institution which focused
on black culture. “Students dropped
out of Duke to go there,” Johnson
recalls.
The Ink covered stwies on other
campuses and stories breaking
worldwide that dealt with the trials
of black people. “We called our
selves i^an-Africanists,” Johnson
said. “Anything that had
to do with brothers and
sisters was important to
us.”
For this reason, the
station of the food work
ers, who were mostly from
the Chaj)el Hill-Carrboro
area and mostly black,
became their cause.
In 1970, it became the
James Cates incident Stu
dents alleged that Cates
was stabbed to death by
three members of a mo
torcycle gang called the
Storm Troopers, who were
known for harassing
blacks with racial slurs
uid violence.
The knifing occurred
(luring an all-night dance
It the Carolina Union.
\lthough there were sev
eral eyewitnesses and
even a testimony from a
Marches on South Building are nothing new.
Chapel Hill police office saying he
heard one Storm Trooper planning
to “kill a nigger,” the all white jury
concluded that there was not sig
nificant evidence to convict the
three bikers.
Students responded by
firebombing the Institute of Phar
macy at UNC, causing over
$100,000 in damage. “None of us
ever got kicked out, “Johnson said.
“There were only about 60 of us
there and they needed to keep us in
order to get federal funding.”
The late seventies saw less con
troversial issues, but a great deal of
activism. “I remember marching
every University Day while 1 was
here,” Dean Fuse-Hall said. “One
year we marched against David
Duke speaking at Memorial Hall,
one year it was for Dr. Sonja Haynes
Stone’s tenure, another year they
tried to lake away Upendo...”
Upendo Lounge, longtime ha
ven for black students at UNC was
equivalent to a South Campus
Union. Located in part of what is
now Chase Dining Hall, it was the
center of cultural activity for South
Campus, where the black students
were concentrated.
In 1985, the administration suc
ceeded in taking the lounge away,
converting it into the cafeteria which
covers the entire bottom floor of
the building.
“Nobody really said much,” said
Eric Walker, class of 1987. “We
were pretty upset, but only a small
vocal minority of us fought against
it”
Walker, who was nicknamed
“Wacko” for his extreme antics
headed the UNC Anti-Apartheid
Support Group. Walker was ar
rested twice for chaining himself to
South Building, building and camp
ing out in shanties like those found
in South Africa,
During this time, talks about the
Black Culuiral Center began. ‘The
big deal became choosing a spot for
the BCC,” said Willa-Jo Greene, a
1988 Pharmacy School graduate.
Greene said most of the attention
went to projects that the members
of black greek organizations look
under their wings.
Tammy Gilliam, a member of
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.,
organized a BCC awareness week
encouraging people to oppose the
center’s current location. She re
ceived, however, very little support
from her fellow black students,
whose number had reached over
1800 by 1985.
“There was a lot of tension and a
lot of talk,” Greene said. “But only
those of us who could conceptual
ize a tiny room representing the
wholeof black culture were angry.”
The same general complacency
carried over to nineties, among the
universitiy’s 2100 black students
until the Summer of 1992. With
talks of a concrete plan for a free
standing building, the protesters
have quieted, but the underlying
tensions, students say, still prevail.
“I never believed UNC was the
liberal flagship institution it was
hyped up to be,” said Brown. “It’s
ridiculous how black students have
continued to get the runaround by
the administration.”
Universtiy officials, however
have not shared the dissatisfaction.
In response to the student de
mands in 1969, former chancellor,
Sitterson repUed,“I think itisclear...
that the university is making a genu
ine effort to be of greater service to
the disadvantaged of our state—all
races, colors and creeds.”