COVER STORIES = 5
SEPTEMBER 16, 1992
1
Student Activism For A Free- St
Party in the Pit:
Students March on South Building
By Tiffany Mhhurst
Ink Staff Writer
Ethereal voices of many student
protesters resounded through the
campus last Thursday as they
marched from the Pit to South
Building, demanding that plans for
a free-standing Black Cultural
Center be established - immediately.
“Nojastice.no peace,” and other
words of protest were chanted as
students filled South Building’s
outside steps.
Leaders of the
march and some
supporters entered
the building and
presented
Chancellor Paul
Hardin with a
protest letter.
The letter staled
that Hardin has
until Nov. 13 to
give the Board of
Trustees a concrete
proposal for a free
standing BCC or
more direct action
would be taken.
“The intensity of our
involvement from here will become
greater and greater every minute,”
said Tim Smith, one of the four
leaders of the Black Awareness
Council. “If he fails to adhere to the
letter he will be disrespecting black
and white people on campus.”
The Chancellor said he respected
the students’ right to demonstrate
but was not swayed by the South
Building march.
“Nothing that happened today
has altered my position,” Hardin
said.
Jimmy Hitchcock of the Black
Awareness Council said of Hardin,
“He never really supported a BCC,
but since student activism started,
he said he was for one.”
In many newspaper articles,
Hardin has expressed a desire to
start negotiations for a BCC but has
failed to contact any BSM, BAC,
Campus Y or Black Greek Council
members for a tentative meeting,
said Michelle Thomas, president of
the Black Student Movement
‘The media has portrayed us as
a group of protesters who are not
trying to negotiate, but we have
tried to schedule a meeting with
Hardin and they haven’t called us
back yet,” she said.
Despite the lack of concrete
action from administrators, students
still feel the marches and jrotests
have been a success.
Hitchcock said the success of
this march was partly owed to the
speak-out in the Pit and the march
to Hardin’s house two weeks ago.
Awa t
Further
Crowd
of Students
Action
During the speak-out, students'
emotions ran high because they were
tired of being ignored.
According to Thomas, about
thirty people remaining at the speak-
out gathered approxiamtely 500
people together for an impromptu
march to Hardin's house at 11:20
p.m.
“The media didn’t write about
love, compassion and unity at the
march,” Thomas said. What they
are writing about is their truth, not
ours.”
Smith said student activism has
increased since last semester
bccause with direct action, people
could see the hard work being done.
“If the masses of people don’t
see work getting done, then it’s not
doing any good,” he said.
Groundwork for a BCC started
seven years ago. Broken promises
and innumerable disappointments
have caused the BSM to strive even
harder for a BCC.
In 1984, the BSM, various
campus administrators,faculty.and
the Vice Chancellor of Student
Affairs Donald Boulton, started a
BCC planning committee.
S ti 11, a BCC has yet to be erected.
“We havedocumentsasearlyas
1987 firom the University promising
students that they would receive a
BCC,” Thomas said.
BAC, a newly formed group
that supports a free-standing Black
Cultural Center, has helped create
more student activism by planning
marches and other direct action
approaches.
“Our approach is lo put things
into action,” Smith
said.
The group plans
to take all of the
minority issues
nationwide and try
to get more athletes
to take a stand on
all mincHity issues.
The BSM, BAC
and other
supporters have
created a lis^ of
items they want to
see in the BCC.
“We want a
music and dance
studio, library, art gallery, study
rooms, meeting rooms, hall of fame,
multi-purpose room, auditorium,
media room, kitchen and an
African-American curriculum
housed in the building,” Thomas
said.
Both groups believe the BCC
could be a place where African-
American culture could flourish and
students and community members
could benefit by learning about a
culture that’s different from their
own.
“Personally, the BCC could be a
place I call home and can learn
about my history without going to
each end of the campus to educate
myself,” said John Bradley, BAC
leader.
Both BAC and the BSM are
confident they will receive a BCC
and plan on continuing to deal with
minority and student issues on this
campus, in the community and
nationally.
Black Ink
4/
Crawford Talks About
Movement; Life As Activist
By Lisa Underwood
Ink Stcff Writer
From her days as an elementary
school educator, lo w(Mldng with
the battle for a free-standing Black
Cultural Center, Margo Crawford
has always been an activist
Describing activism as taking
knowledge and scholarship and
transferring that into action for the
good of the world. Crawford said
her role as an educator for 22 years
could be seen as activist behavior.
“That’s what I’ve done all of
my life—work to make the world
abetterplace,” CrawfOTdsaid.“An
educator is an activist”
Before coming to the
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in 1988, Crawford
worked as an African-American
studies professor at North Eastern
University in Illinois. At one time,
she even worked for the Chicago
Housing Authority in program
development, where she helped
raise money and implement
programs, Crawford said.
But today, most (rf Crawfcml’s
thoughts and energy go into her
position as director of the Black
Cultural Center. Thinking back to
when she was first hired to run the
BCC.Crawford said there was even
discussion then about the goal to
build a BCC.
Back then, the talk was about a
22,000 -square foot building and
even led to the possibility of
receiving funds from the
Bicentennial Campaign, Crawfrad
said. There even was a feasibilty
study done about the BCC, she
added.
Among those whom Crawford
remembered as taking an active
interest in a BCC, was Bob
Eubanks, chairman of the Board
of Trustees for the University in
1988. He got the BCC on the
Bicentennial Campaign’s original
list of recipients, she said.
That list stated that the BCC
was to receive $2.5 million for a
building, Crawford said.
As of last year, the amount of
money the BCC would receive
from the Bicentennial list was
$500,000, money to be used fw
programs and renovaticwis only.
Crawford compares the present
tactics, which are being used to
get a free-standing BCC, to the
1960s Civil Rights Movement.
They follow exactly the model Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. described
in his “Letter from a Birmingham
Jail,” Crawford said.
She explained his model as
having four parts:
• Collect information
• Havedialogueandcommunicate
with who is in power
• Pray, purify and strengthen in
order to get ready for the last stage
• Directly act
“I think that the move for a
free-standing BCC is exactly the
same as the model,” Crawfwd said.
Every step in the model has been
followed, she said.
For Crawford, recent protests
have served as an eye-opening
experience.
It has forced us to k>ok at the
relationship with our black
athletes, she said.
“If they (black athletes) had
not joined this movement, it
probably would not be at the level
it is now,” she said.
The four football playCTS who
formed the Black Awareness
Council (BAC) have helped
organize evraits such as the march
to Chancellor Paul Hardin’s hcxne
on SepL 3 and the march to South
Building on Sq>tl0.
But more importantly, the
protests have fwced us to look at
the relationship between the black
community and the University,
Crawford said. The nation’s eyes
are on this campus, and they are
forced to look at institutionalized
racism, she said.