COVER STORY 7
^ile Heading into the Future
challenging having a BSM and
its financial-backing,” said
Jacqueline Lucas, who served as
chairwoman during her junior
year, 1976-77. “In my
administration, we always had to
justify the need for money.”
And then there was what has
been termed by past leaders as
the “David Duke Affair.” Duke,
who was a former Grand Dragon
of the Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan, was paid with student fees
by the University to speak at
Memorial Hall.
“I’ll never forget that night,”
said Assistant Dean of General
College Harold Woodward, who
was one of about 250 protesters
in the audience that evening. “It
was the night that UNC played
State.”
Woodwardsaid demonstrators
lined both the walls in Memorial
Hall and each time Duke
approached the podium to speak,
students “jeered” him down.
While jeering, demonstrators
began singing, “Power to the
People/Black Power to the
PeopleAVho Shall survive in
American?A^ery few niggers and
no crackers at all.”
While many of the articles,
including those written in the
Daily Tar Heel, said that the
BSM, by their action, denied
Duke his First Amendment right
to speak, Wallace disagreed.
“It was about a terrorist
organization that had killed black
people and raped women, and
lynched our men and terrorized
our community...and this
organization was going to come
to the campus and expect the black
folk to take it,” he said.
Allen Johnson III, former Ink
editor and BSM chairman, said
the invitation to Duke was just
one of several examples of the
growing insensitivity on the part
of students and University
officials toward blacks on
campus.
“One year, we burnt the
Yackety Yack in the Pit because
there was not one black person in
it,” said Carson, who said he also
remembered a dog on campus
specifically trained to only bark
at black pet^le.
Woodward, who auended the
University from 1974-78 as an
undergraduate, said to the
outsider, it was a pretty liberal
place to be. But there were a few
incidents, he said.
“People were still being called
nigger,” said Woodward, who
only improved a liule. The BSM
was still being challenged by
various groups looking for an
excuse to deny any kind of
University funding to the
organization.
After various members of the
campus aetheist organization
sawBSMchoir members praying
“If the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill is to move
into the 21st century claiming to
be a haven for diversity, then the
administrators must understand
that in order to achieve diversity,
there needs to be an appreciation
for people of all cultures,”
Thomas said.
The BSM was modeled after Bobby Seale’s Black Panther Party.
was a member of the BSM Central
Committee and an Opeyo! dancer
his senior year. Opeyo! is a BSM
dance group.
There was also a growing
feeling of apathy on the part of
students. Many thought they
could do without the BSM.
“I remember a black student
approaching me and asking, why
do we call it the BSM and why
are we separatist?” Johnson said.
“The next semester he came
running asking where could he
sign.”
To Johnson, students such as
these were common. They
thought they could do without the
organization and assimilate,
easily.
“You needed that support
system,” he said.
By the late 1980s, things had
and testifying before rehearsals,
they challenged the University’s
giving of funds to a religious
organization.
The BSM leader at the time
was Wendelin Jo Watson.
“I had to go and defend the
fact that the BSM choir was a
cultural sub-group, not a religious
group,” said Watson, who began
using the term president during
her administration.
As the BSM begins working
on another 25 years, the
organization will continue to play
a vital role in the University
community and especially in the
black community, Thomas said.
“I want students to understand
the contributions the BSM has
made and the importance of the
organization on campus,”
Thomas said.
For the next 25 years,
Johnson offers the Black Student
Movementand black students the
following advice: “Pass along the
flame, the flame of hope. It may
not always be right, but do
something.”
JO WATSON and the BSM
GOSPEL CHOIR
When Wendelin Jo Watson
told members of the Black
Student Movement’s Gospel
Choir to stop praying and
testify ing during choir rehearsals,
the president of the choir sought
to impeach her.
When Jacqueline Lucas, was
preparing to participate in a
University Day protest in 1976 to
try and save Upendo Lounge, she
received several threats and
telephone calls saying that the
National Guard would be called
m.
Neither women, however,
gave in. They continued fighting
for what they thought was right.
Watson and Lucas are two of
the nine women who have led the
Black Student Movement during
some its most crucial years.
They provided the organization
and black students at the
University with both their time
and leadership skills.
“It’s unselfish leadership,”
Vice-Chancellor Wallace said of
the BSM’s past leaders.
Lucas, who dealt with the
issue of Upendo Lounge during
her administration, also had to
pick up the pieces from another
administration.
When former BSM Chairman
Lester Diggs resigned in the
Spring of 1976, there was a lot of
clean-up work to do. Diggs
resigned amid allegations of
spending BSM money without
the knowledge of the central
committee.
“The focus was getting away
from the cause,” said Lucas,
referring to what had taken place
during and after Diggs’
resignation.
Although it was a
diasppointing phase for Lucas,
she was able to do what needed to
be done and to begin focusing on
a more serious i.ssue, keeping
Upendo Lounge. During this
time, the University was asking
for the lounge in order to use the
space to expand Cha.se Dinning
Hall.
“We had to go lo bat to get it,
and we had to go to bat lo keep it,”
Lucas said.
A couple of years following
Lucas’ term, the BSMwas hit with
yet another in-house crisis. This
time it was the organization’s
largest sub-group, the BSM
Gospel Choir, which needed to
be kept in line.
See BSM PAGE
10.