The NC State African American Cultural Center: Space for Campus Dialogue or Separatist Forum?

Introduction

 On March 1, 1991, the new African American Cultural Center and Library opened in the newly built Witherspoon Hall.  The new center and library were the result of a $25 million project to promote continued dialogue about African-American issues on campus and represented an important recognition by the university that problems of unequal access to education, jobs, and social services continued to plague African-American communities.  However, the opening of the center rankled some students on campus.  Many of these students expressed discomfort with the idea that so much money and resources had been invested into a separate African-American center when no such center existed to promote white, Latino, or Asian culture.  These students felt inherently uncomfortable and unwelcome in the new African American Cultural Center space and felt that the center existed only for the use of African-American students.[1]