Quail Roost Response

"Quail Roost: Students, administrators see conference differently," February 6, 1974

     According to recorded accounts of the conference, students and administrators discussed specific issues, such as the Print Shop, Pan African Week, and campus communication. On February 6, 1974, Talley discussed his perceptions of the meeting stating, “It certainly didn’t accomplish what we’d hoped it would… there was an awful lot of talk, and not enough done… I think that there were some black students who just didn’t come there to talk. There was a lot of yelling going on.” Many white students countered Talley’s perception. Terry Carroll stated, “I felt like the black students had a legitimate bitch. I personally got a much broader understanding of the situation.” For Carroll and many other white students, the conference was the first time they realized the significance of the cultural center to the SAAC. Dr. Witherspoon, an African American professor and an NC State alumnus, emphasized the need for a cultural center on campus:

"If you’re ever in a minority, though, and you never see anything you can look at and touch and which says, 'This is me; this is a part of me,' then this is bad. This is what the back student faces, because he has nothing to which he can relate directly, which states his culture and his experience. This is what the black cultural center should be about, to give the black student something to which he can relate personally…If white kids don’t know what black men contributed to this country, and the part they played and still play in this society, then they are missing a part of American history, of their history. I think this hurts the white kids as well as the black kids."

The success of the Quail Roost conference encouraged white student leaders to support African Americans’ calls for a cultural center.

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