Introduction
After the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. in April of 1968, sixty-three North Carolina State University students chartered the Society of Afro-American Culture (SAAC), an on-campus club that sprang from the national Black Power movement. This site argues that, much like other Black Power student groups from this period, the SAAC’s goal was to change, not assimilate to, NC State. The club was formed in reaction to a divided campus that, in their view, still harbored remnants of its segregated past. Comprised of both undergraduate and graduate students, the SAAC provided a University-sanctioned space in which members could not only organize protests and pursue campus-wide changes, but also discuss contemporary issues about black identity and community. Membership was open to all students of any standing, race, or gender, as well as any faculty members who wished to participate.
This exhibit seeks to contextualize the SAAC in both a local and a larger national black student movement that took place during what historian Peniel E. Joseph terms the “classical period” of the Black Power movement (1966-1975). The coming of the Black Power movement in 1966 led to increased student demand for Black Studies programs, Black cultural centers, and greater attention to global African issues. As the Black Power movement and related auxiliary groups like the Black Panther Party gained prominence on campuses across the United States--including universities such as NC State that remained predominantly white--black student groups became an active part of campus life.
Organizations such as the SAAC, frustrated with institutionalized racism and a lack of representation within the university, issued demands to white administrators and staged protests both on and off university property. In addition to issues that directly affected the university and local community, these groups also created campus-based dialogue about global concerns such as African decolonization and South Africa's institutionalized apartheid, as well as internal concerns such as the definition of "blackness."
Visit other Exhibits in Crossing the Color Line.