67The Daily Tar HeelWednesday, March 3, 1982
13
ailtj alar litd Hey;
history
key to future
90th year of editorial freedom
JOHN DRESCHER, Editor
ANN PETERS, Managing Editor
KERRY DE ROCHI, Associate Editor
RACHEL PERRY. University Editor
ALAN CHAPPLE, City Editor
JIM WRINN, State and National Editor
Linda Robertson, Spom Editor
AL STEELE, Photography Editor
' KENMWGIS, Associate Editor
ELAINE MCCLATCHEY, Projects Editor
LYNN PEITHMAN, News Editor
SUSAN HUDSON, Features Editor
NlSSEN RlTTER, Arts Editor
Teresa Curry, Spotlight Editor
By KERR Y De ROCHI
For a young Alex Haley, the warm
summer evenings in Henning, Term.,
were a time spent waiting to hear the
whistle of trains as they passed through
the center of the small town. v
Then, as if on cue, he would watch his
five great aunts and grandmother file on
to the family's front porch; his grand
mother always taking the white wicker
chair. After the six women had synchro-
First impressions
Every year, black freshmen arrive at UNC a day early for Pre-Orientation,
a program which introduces them to life as a black student at
Carolina. The next day the rest of the freshmen move in for Orientation,
a program which introduces all students to life at Carolina.
While both Orientation and Pre-Orientation serve important purposes,
problems have cropped up because of the separation of the programs.
This year, the Orientation Commission plans to end the separation
through more diverse programming during Orientation Week. These ef
forts should narrow the gap between the two programs.
In the past, black freshmen often showed little interest in meeting with
their Orientation Counselors since they already had Pre-Orientation
Counselors. These problems were not intentional but they added to the
feelings of segregation already prevalent on campus. ,
The Commission's goal this year is to provide a more diverse program
during Orientation week so that a variety of culture is represented. More
diverse programming should eventually lead to more cooperation between
the two programs. More cooperation would occur if Pre-Orientation ac
tivities occurred during Orientation Week instead of the day before. This
way all students, not just black students, would be made more aware of
black culture at the University.
The programs of Pre-Orientation, such as workshops about the
minority advising program, should not change. Those programs were
designed primarily for black students.
But other programs such as a lecture by an upper class black student, a
dinner with black members of the faculty and the Black Student Move
ment's culture program with the Opeyo dancers, the Ebony Readers and
the BSM gospel choir would be beneficial to all students, black or white.
By making Pre-Orientation occur before the rest of the freshmen arrive,
these programs have not been available. Often the initial separation of
blacks and whites fosters feelings of segregation that too often remain for
four years. By ending this separation, black and white freshmen can learn
together about UNC without taking away from the support Pre-Orientation
provides for the black student.
!
f x - I
if " N '
Tit
1
-t.
J if
r
X
lilfllllis
, mini nn-
JT
"In my mind I'm going to Carolina.
Can't you see the sun shine?
Can't you just feel the moon shine?
Ain't it just like a friend of mine
to hit me from behind?
Yes, I'm going to Carolina in my mind.
From "Carolina In My Mind," by James Taylor, 1968
James Taylor comes home tonight. When his concert starts at 8 p.m.,
students who have grown up with those familiar lines will have a rare
opportunity to see the performer who put Chapel Hill on the musical
map. Although Chapel Hill is his hometown, it's been a decade since
Taylor last played here.
Taylor was not born in Chapel Hill; he is originally from Boston. But
he grew up here, and that is why Chapel Hill has adopted him as one of
its own. There is often a feeling in his songs that James Taylor has cap
tured the spirit of UNC and this town.
Perhaps the song that best expresses that spirit is "Carolina In My
Mind." Since its release 14 years ago, the song has become almost
synonymous with UNC. Freshmen, new to the ways of Carolina and
Chapel Hill, are welcomed to UNC with the song at a slideshow during
orientation. Soon they, like other students, know the familiar lines by
heart and cannot hear the song without thinking of Carolina.
As expected, excitement about tonight's concert built from the start.
Word spread that tickets would sell out quickly. When they went on sale
two weeks ago, some students had already been in line overnight an
honor usually restricted to basketball and football games. Numerous
classified ads requesting tickets have been placed in this paper in the last
week; tickets are selling for up to $25.
Chapel Hill's love affair with James Taylor is nothing new. Last year,
the Chapel Thrill concert committee tried every way imaginable to sign
him for an outdoor concert. His father, a professor of medicine at
UNC, even was asked to help. But Taylor could not make it.
Thus, tonight's concert is all the more special. Taylor will play to an
audience in Carmichael Auditorium that has long awaited a chance to
see him back in Chapel Hill.
Welcome home, JT.
Alax Hstey
nized their rocking, each would reach in
to her pocket, pull out a pinch of snuff
and load her lower lip.
Each night, the boy wouldlisten to the
old women as they wondered again at
how long it had been since they had last
seen each other. The stories the re
member whens would begin. The six
spoke of their father, Tom the black
smith, a slave in Alamance County. They
spoke of their mother Irene. They spoke
of Chicken George, her father and his
mother Kizzie.
And finally, they would speak of Kiz
zie' s father. The African, they called him.
They said his name was Kinte. Kunta
Kinte.
About six years have passed since Haley
first told the story of Kunta Kinte to mil
lions of readers and television viewers.
His story, Roots, has won 271 awards in
cluding a Pulitzer Prize and the National
Book Award.
Today, Haley travels nation-wide
speaking to audiences of his experiences
in writing his family's history. At UNC
last week, he casually mentioned a sche
dule filled with various flights to Indiana
polis, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
On Saturday he would meet with his bar
ber for one hour. On Monday he would
meet with the U.S. House of Representa
tives. But through the success and fame
Haley maintains he is never far from the
summer nights in Henning when he first
was told his family's background. He
speaks fondly of his grandparents; their
stories and memories.
"I think now it is fairly evident that
' after everything else, (Roots) was the
story of the generations of a family,"
Haley said. "And everybody in this audi
torium and everyone not in this audi
torium can relate to that. Everyone be
longs to someone.
"The impression was that history pre
viously was preserved for the blue bloods,
the royalty. I think when Roots came out
it sort of triggered lots and lots of people
that they had something too. The hard
truth was that serfs, peasants or slaves or
dependents had just as much lineage as
the prince had."
It is this average American that Haley
said his cross-country tours have kept
him close to. Often he would visit the
concrete-inclosed inner cities as if to
prove he was not afraid of going back to
face the poverty and despair.
IN QUOTES
"It doesn't take a lot of reflection to
remember; it seems pretty close ago, that
I was sitting in a room, pecking away at a
typewriter and praying to God somebody
would read what I wrote," Haley said
shaking his head. "It's a very touching
thing to go into a community where peo
ple are deprived and have so little and got
so many troubles, see them light up when
you come and see them grateful that you
came.
"I always feel queasy when these peo-v
pie say something like 'we would never
have thought you would have come here.'
I would always say, (in return), 'you're
here.' And I mean that, I really mean
that."
Haley speaks of difficult situations
facing black Amerians everyday. He
speaks of the alarming prison statistics
which show a high percentage of black in
mates. For an example, he points to one
prison in Illinois. The percentage of
blacks in Illinois is about 15 percent while
the percentage of blacks in the maximum
security prison is 86.
"Now that, that is horrible," Haley
said. "See when you look at that you are
very, very graphically, very, very empha
tically looking at a social system in pro
cess. It isn't that that many people are
that venal. It's just that that many little
kids grow up in those cities, and inner
' cities and what they meet from the age of
infancy forward on the whole tends to
put 86 percent of them in that particular
place instead of in a university or in busi
nesses or in the towers, or in the wherever
wherevers.
"I think that maybe whatever is the sit
uation with black people and with mino
rities in general is probably the best baro
meter of the true morality of this country.
I'm not saying this begging the cause of
black people at all. I'm just trying to talk
as an observer of society, of all of us,
human beings."
It is to both whites and blacks that
Haley speaks of the fast-paced society
and the individualism that has isolated
people from each other. "I sometimes
feel like deploring all the time and energy
spe'nt separating everything, forgetting
how alike we are as human beings,"
Haley said. "We tend to draw away, we
have less and less time for those who
made it possible for us to be whoever we
are and wherever we are.
"It disturbs me the number of people
that use the expression, I'm nobody. That
really bothers me, to hear somebody, and
I mean lots of people, say that. Now what
they're meaning is that they have not
managed to acquire much of the world's
goods or its prestige or its this, that or the
other.
"I'm not talking about black people.
I'm talking about white people. Many
white people use exactly the same expres
sion, I'm nobody.
"And yes you are somebody."
As a writer, Alex Haley has traced his
family's history from the torn relatives of
Kunta Kinte in The Gambia, West Africa
to the joyed family of Chicken George
free in Tennessee. He brought to public
those stories spoken rerniniscently on his t
front porch in Tennessee. He is optimistic
for the future, perhaps because he has
seen so closely what has been the past.
His message of hope was clear one day
on the set where Roots was filmed. As
;Haley and other's eyes were riveted to the
action, the African Kunta Kinte was
whipped into submission, into accepting
the white-American name. His friend
Fiddler moved to catch him as he fell to
the ground.
Though there was no scene directions,
Fiddler's face covered with tears. Though
there was no dialogue he began to speak.
"He said 'what difference it make what
they call you, you know who yous is,
yous Kunta. There's gonna be a better
day; there's gonna be a better day,' "
Haley recounted. "I always like to think
about that, what came out of Fiddler's
mouth as being a conduit for what I like
to hope we can cause to happen.
"It won't just happen, we have to
make it happen, we have to make that
better day."
Kerry DeRochi, a junior jounalism and
English major from Greensboro, is asso
ciate editor of The Daily Tar Heel.
r.
r.
X
f
V:
DTHAIStMle
Alex Haley speaking in Chapel Hill (above).
...Haley signs autographs (below).
DTHAJ Steele
I-'; ' MR 0 ;; ' - - '
The Daily Tar Heel
Editorial Assistants: Michelle Christenbury, Beverly Shepard, Jon Talcott
Assistant Managing Editors: Lynn Earley, Karen Haywood, Ann Murphy
News Desk: Ted Avery, Joseph Berryhill, Paul Boyd, Stacia Qawson, Alison Davis, Lisa
Evans, Evelyn Faison, Donna Fultz, Ivy Hilliard, Dan Hart, Melissa Moore, Michele Pelkey,
Laura Seifert, Jan Sharpe, Martie Hayworth, Jule Hubbard, Renae Lyas, Clare Lynman, Lin
Rollins, Dale McKeel, Mary McKeel, Lisa Reynolds, Lynsley Rollins, Tracey Thomps. Martha
Quillin, assistant news editor.
News: Cheryl Anderson, Greg Batten, Scott Bolejack, Sherri Boles, Laurie Bradsher, John
Conway, Cindy Cranford, Alison Davis, Tamara Davis, David Deese, Pam Duncan, Amy
Edwards, Dean Foust, Jeff Hiday, Peter Judge, Dean Lowman, Elizabeth Lucas, Kyle
Marshall, David McHugh, Alexandra McMillan, Melissa Moore, Robert Montgomery, Sonja
Payton, Nancy Rucker, Mike O'Reilly, Suzette Roach, Laura Seifert, Ken Siman, Kelly
Simmons, Mark Stinneford, Stephen Stock, Anna Tate, Lynne Thompson, Ginger Trull,
Sonya Weakley, Chip Wilson, Wendell Wood, Kim Wood. Katherine Long, assistant state and
national editor.
Sports: Jackie Blackburn and Scott Price, assistant sports editors. Kim Adams, Tom Berry,
R.L. Bynum, Stephanie Graham, Morris Haywood, Adam Kandell, Sharon Kester, Draggan
Mihailovich, Lee Sullivan, and Tracy Young.
Features: Jill Anderson, Ramona Brown, Shelley Block, Lorrie Douglas, Cindy Haga, Lisbeth
Levine, Mitzd Morris, Tina Rudolf, David Rome, Vince Steele, Debbie Sykes, Rosemary
Wagner, Randy Walker, Clinton Weaver, Susan Wheelon. Jane Calloway, assistant Spotlight
editor.
Arts: Jeff Grove and Marc Routh assistant arts editors; Dennis Goss, Vick Griffin, Julian
Karchmer, Ed Leitch, Christine Manuel, Dawn McDonald, Tim Mooney, Tom Moore, Karen
Rosen, Guha Shankar and Jan Williams. .
Graphic Arts: Matt Cooper, Pam Corbett, Nick Demos, Andy Fullwood, Danny Harrell,
Dane Huffman, Sam Mitchell, Janice Murphy, Vince Steele and Tom Westarp, artists;
Suzanne Com 'jrsano, Jay Hyman, Faith Quintavell and Scott Sharpe photographers.
Business: Rejeanne V. Caron, business manager; Linda A. Cooper, secretaryreceptionist;
Lisa Morrell and Anne Sink, bookkeepers; Dawn Welch, circulationdistribution manager;
Julie Jones and Angie Wolfe, classifieds.
Advertising: Paula Brewer, advertising manager; Mike Tabor, advertising coordinator;
Harry Hayes, Keith Lee, Terry Lee, Jeff McElhaney, Karen Newell, Deana Setzer, Betsy
Swartzbaugh and Anneli Zeck ad representatives.
Composition: Frank Porter Graham Composition Division, UNC-CH Printing Department.
Printing: Hinton Press, Inc., of Mebane.
Letters to the editor
Former speaker criticizes headline
To the editor:
In reference to the. article, "CGC
Passes Political Funding," (DTH, Feb.
26), we'd like to express our dissatisfac
tion with the headline and the haphazard
placement of paragraphs.
The headline was misleading: the
Campus Governing Council did not
pass a bill that funded any political
group. Instead, the bill that was passed
simply deleted the clause that denied
political and religious groups funding.
under all circumstances. The reasoning
behind this action was based on the
vagueness of the existing clause and on
the Supreme Court case involving the
University of Missouri and its denial of
facilities for religious meetings. As Jeff
Carries read that evening, the decision
implies that religious groups could not
be denied consideration in the allocation
of student fees.
In addition to the more confusing
thandarifying headline, the story skip
ped back and forth between two entirely
different issues. The conclusion to the
second paragraph was paragraph seven!
On behalf of the past CGC members,
we'd like to express our sincere grati
tude to Jonathan Smylie, DTH reporter
for the past CGC session, for his know-,
ledgeable presentations of the issues.
We hope that the DTH will continue to
responsibly report the activites of the
CGC.
El Chino Martin
past CGC Speaker, District 15
Ellen Goldberg
past CGC representative, District 10
Financial Aid
To the editor:
We would like to-expand on Thurs
day's DTH article on Financial aid cuts
by adding a few facts. On Feb. 8, 1982,
President Ronald Reagan proposed se
vere budget cuts in student financial aid
as part of his 1983-1984 budget. He also
proposed the elimination of graduate
OK MAM'S XM-.
,-IS ANOTHER MAM'S SORROW.
and professional students from the
Guaranteed Student Loan program as
of May 1, 1982. This loan program is
currently the largest source of loan
money available to law students in the
United States and is used by a large
number of other graduate students as
well.
The president's proposal would shift
all graduate and professional students
to the Auxiliary LoanPLUS program.
The auxiliary loan program terms in
clude interest rates set at 14 percent,
payable while the student is enrolled in
school. This places a severe hardship on
the student who will be unlikely to have
sufficient income to meet substantial in
terest payments while at school.
Finally, the College Foundation,
Inc., who would administer such loans
in North Carolina, are not prepared to
administer the auxiliary loan program at
present, and have said that it is unlikely
they will be able to process such loans
before May 1983.-
The USL program was trimmed last
year and a system on need-analysis es
tablished. The independent student who
makes more than $30,000 or the de
pendent student whose parents make
more than $30,000 per year must show
need to receive a GSL. Thus, abuses
which may have occurred in the past are
unlikely to occur in the future.'
The GSL program is an essential
source of loan money for many stu
dents. Most students-who are receiving
loans have already made tremendous
sacrifices to stay in school and face high
loan payments when they leave school.
To cut off such funds to students who
are in the middle of graduate school is
unjust. To cut off all graduate student
loans regardless of need or willingness
and ability to repay is inequitable and
shortsighted. One of America's best re
sources is the educated citizen.
Leslie Carter
and two other
second vear law students