Progress for What Purpose?

Jack Barger's letter to Chancellor Caldwell.

 

The second Good Neighbor Council was largely concerned of developing a black presence on campus and change NC State's perception within Raleigh's greater black community. 

The Good Neighbor Council's goal of black recruitment was entirely prescient. In 1967, NC State enrolled approximately 100 black students, about 1% of the student body---nowhere close to the nearly 25% of blacks within North Carolina's population.[1] By 1969, nearly 15 years after NC State's first black undergraduate, many black student activists had had enough of integration by gradual tokenism. The Good Neighbor Council was not immune to such criticisms. In the spring of 1969, one of the few black student representatives on the council expressed his desire to resign from the committee, explaining that Chancellor Caldwell's appointment made him lose all credibility with the black student body.[2] A few months later, the student body president, Jack Barger, told Chancellor Caldwell and the Good Neighbor Council that he had a hard time encouraging black students to join the committee. Barger explained that most black students thought the Good Neighbor Council had, "no power, does nothing, and is purely a superficial organization established to argue non-relevant issues."[3]

This news was not terribly surprising to the professors that made up the majority of the GNC. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Good Neighbor Council witnessed a campus community that was rife with social and cultural unrest. While black students followed an increasingly militant Civil Rights Movement, NC State administrators and faculty largely believed that the hardest part of racial integration was over. As a result, the GNC and the student body witnessed a generational clash. The Good Neighbor Council chairman of the late 1960s, Professor Ralph Greenlaw, expressed his own racial biases in a letter to Chancellor Caldwell. Greenlaw stated, "They [black students] just do not seem to be able to accept the fact that something other than direct action can really help the situation."[4] In a Technician article the next day, Chairman Greenlaw stated, "I'd say that the Council is working under a handicap, because black students do not seem to want to participate in meetings of the Council. This cuts off an important segment of the University community. While it is true that the Council cannot take direct action, power exists to bring a case to the attention of proper authorities."[5] Chancellor Caldwell mirrored Chairman Greenlaw's paternalistic sentiment in his 1969 convocation address. "Your position in this community is secure and respected. If you have had personal grievances, the university has dealt with them promptly and in good faith...Some of you black students regretfully may have been persuaded that you do not owe the world of the White man anything. Comprehensible as that view may be, I respectfully and lovingly remind you that every student here of any color owes basic respect to the community he has voluntarily entered."[6] Despite a lengthy integration process, there was still great disagreement as to the process of incorporating black bodies in traditionally white spaces. 

In order to rectify this generational gap, the 1969-1970 Good Neighbor Council broke off into five distinct sub-committees, geared toward specific--and timely--policy changes. The sub-committees were Housing, Recruiting Black Students, Recruiting Black Faculty, Incident Investigation, and Institutional Racism.[7] Essentially, Chairman Greenlaw listened to black students' calls for racial dialogue and active change, and he redirected his course. In Greenlaw's 1970 report, he stated, "Most important, we must recognize that racism is latent in all of us, be we students, faculty, administrators or non-academic employees. This must not be allowed to become unconsciously infused in the established procedure and policies of the University. Instead, we must ever be aware of the fact that in each man and position there is an element of dignity that must be acknowledged and enhanced."[8] Greenlaw realized that the GNC could only make divisive change by a concertive effort. The GNC's project finallt had a purpose.