Introduction
Students walking by the belltower, circa 1970s.
Although the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s won many victories for African Americans, it is easy to forget that Brown vs. Board of Education was only the first step in a long journey towards equality in schools.[1] University students also continued to struggle for equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal space on campuses across the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, and especially in the South. North Carolina State University was no exception.
During the protests and demonstrations of the 1960s, many black students fought for access to traditionally white schools and universities. Success would mean admittance to academic institutions that—as a result of institutionalized racism—were better funded, better staffed, and more respected. However, these struggles were not about education alone. Integration as a movement was, put simply, a fight for equal access to certain kinds of spaces. Once African Americans were admitted to traditionally white schools, they still had to challenge other kinds of restrictions.[2] Access to certain places on campus, equal treatment in the classroom, coverage of black accomplishments in school publications, and courses on black cultures and peoples—none of these were a given.[3]
By understanding NC State’s racial history is spatial terms, two facts become clear: black students faced many systematic challenges that undermined their struggle and integration was not an event but a negotiation and a process. Progressive social change was hampered by limited black access to physical and metaphorical spaces; at the beginning of the 1960s, black students were not situated to make their voices heard. As black students struggled for practical access to space—a larger presence in the classroom, non-discriminatory housing near campus, access to social gathering places on Hillsborough Street—they were also fighting to enter spaces where their voices could be heard and could affect change.
The 1960s and early 1970s witnessed the struggles of many black students striving for equality in many different kinds of spaces. “Race and Space: The Student Body” explores both real and metaphorical contested spaces—and the implications of integrating them—on NC State’s campus. The exhibit also sheds light on the myriad ways NC State’s black students engaged with, fought over, and eventually won rights to spaces on campus, in the classroom, and in print. This is a story about how black students won the right and the space to negotiate their futures.
[1] U.S. Courts, “The Plessy Decision,” accessed October 26, 2014. http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/get-involved/federal-court-activities/brown-board-education-re-enactment/history.aspx.
[2] Jack Weinburg, “Students and Civil Rights in the 1960s,” History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 1990): 212-224; Richard McIntire, “Impacting Change: Students in the Civil Rights Movement,” Black Collegian, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2008): 65-68.
[3] Evidence of struggles over spaces on campus, in the classroom, and in print can be found in a number of different places in NC State’s special collections. The digitized archive of The Technician has dozens of articles from the 1960s and 1970s that speak to the turmoil on campus (see citation below). Additionally, the University Archives Reference Collections (UA 050.1.19, UA 050.1.20, UA 050.1.1, UA 050.1.15) contain information on black studies courses, the Good Neighbor Council (which was established to eradicate racism and discrimination on campus), efforts of various black organizations to raise awareness about and campaign against discrimination, and statistics for the number of black students on campus. NC State Rate & Unique Digital Collections, “The Technician,” accessed October 26, 2014. http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog?_=1414339445272&f%5Bispartof_facet%5D%5B%5D=Technician.