First African Americans Recruited to Play Football (1970)
1970 Charley Young (second left) Willie Burden (Far right)
Willie Burden and Charlie Young[1] were the first African American recruited to North Carolina State to play football. Although Marcus Martin was the first African American to play on the football team, he joined as a walk-on player. Both Young and Burden had standout careers at Enloe high school in Raleigh, North Carolina. Their recruitment symbolized the first time that previously segregated N.C. State started to recruit standout black athletes from the community .[2[ [3]
[1] UA 015.401 North Carolina State University, Athletics, Football Audiovisual Materials 1937‑1992,Digitized Collection, North Carolina State University Special Collections, Raleigh, NC. Accessed November 13, 2014. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/ua015_401.
[2] UA 023.004 University Archives Photograph Collection, Athletics Photographs, 1893‑2003, Digitized Collection, North Carolina State University Special Collections, Raleigh, NC. Accessed November 13, 2014. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/ua023_004.
[3] Historical State. ʺAfrican Americans, Timeline.ʺ Accessed October 25, 2014.http://historicalstate.lib.ncsu.edu/timelines/African‑Americans.