A Letter to Dr. Talley

The SAAC continued to organize and take part in demonstrations on campus, as well as issue official statements to the administration. In November 1971, the SAAC authored a letter to Dr. Banks C. Talley, Jr., the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, in reaction to a progress report about black students. It is unknown if they were invited to do so by Dr. Talley.

This four-page letter echoes demands the SAAC had been making since its founding. Though almost three years had passed since the Eddie Davis confrontation, one particular area of concern for the SAAC was still black employment on campus. They charged NC State with discrimination against black students applying for work on campus. They requested an investigation into the incidents, and demanded a written report explaining why the students were not hired; it is unknown if the SAAC ever received such a report from the university. Related to employment, they also asked for a black employee to be hired in the Personnel Department "to recruit Black employees for clerical and non-academic positions." In an echo of the Physical Plant protest, a final demand from the organization was what they termed a "Dormitory Custodian Load," which entailed enacting "regulations concerning undue filth."

Additionally, the SAAC asked that black representatives on twenty of the university's most prominent committees, including Admissions, Government, and the Student Senate, hold 30% of the voting power. These demands are identical to those issued by black student groups at this time on other campuses across the nation, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University, and the University of California-Los Angeles. This indicates that, at least on some level, the SAAC identified with the larger national black student movement and Black Power movement and felt that such demands were necessary to help ease the alienation that black students felt on campuses across the nation.

Visit other Exhibits in Crossing the Color Line.