Campus Support

"The Group" newsletter.

"The Group" flyer.

"Students and Workers Unit[e]!"

"The Group" as investigators.

SAAC's statement of support.

The Good Neighbor Council advises Chancellor Caldwell.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Physical Plant employees’ protests was the amount of campus support they garnered from student and faculty groups. NC State was not known for student activism on campus in the 1960s, but demonstrations and rallies in support of the black workers occurred regularly throughout the spring of 1969.[1]

The most involved student group was the Society of Afro-American Culture (SAAC). After Eddie Davis's demotion, SAAC helped organize the first rally in support of the workers on February 28. SAAC published “A Statement of Support to the Non-Academic Workers by the Society of Afro-American Culture” and took part in organizing support for the workers that cut across race, class, and community lines. They participated with students from Shaw University and St. Augustine’s University in a torchlight march from Union Mall to Chancellor’s Caldwell’s home in which a student was assaulted with a chain.[2] The group was intricately involved in the Physical Plant employees’ protests from beginning to end and demonstrated that black students and the black community supported NC State’s workers.

Another student activist organization, simply called “The Group,” was an offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society. They coordinated with SAAC to plan rallies and drum up support for the workers. They acted as supporters, organizers, and investigators over the entire course of events. Importantly, the white students of “The Group” coordinated across race and class lines. They demanded greater cooperation among campus groups in their publications such as “Students and Workers Unit[e]!”[3]

The Good Neighbor Council, a majority of whose members were white professors and administrators, was also intricately involved in the Physical Plant employee situation. The Council acted as an advisory group to Chancellor Caldwell, talking to both the Physical Plant employees and university administration. They made recommendations to Chancellor Caldwell on how to address the employees’ grievances but also suggested ways to overcome the racism that was prevalent in all of NC State’s campus spaces. While the Council was technically a neutral party and professionally advised Chancellor Caldwell, their support for the black employees was thinly veiled in their correspondence with the chancellor. In their recommendations, the Council called the existing employees association "the relic of a paternatlistic era...that is not appropriate to the needs of workers in the 1960's," acknowledged and supported the "necessity of improving the wages of these workers," and addressed employment discrimination stating, "For too long tradition has dictated that the black man is hired for the menial position. Tradition must give way to judgments based solely on individual worth, ability and performance."[4] All of the Council's recommendations to Chancellor Caldwell indicated and acknowledged that Physical Plant management created a working environment that possessed latent racist attitudes and practices and black employees' treatment was intentionally unfair and unequal.

The support given to the Physical Plant employees in 1969 demonstrated to university administration that if the racism that dominated the institution continued, campus groups were more than willing to work together in order to fight for equality. The events in the Physical Plant coupled with discrimination charges levied against the Consolidated University of North Carolina (of which NC State was a member) by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in 1970, forced university administration, however hesitantly, to address the problems of institutional racism and start making changes to the working conditions and treatment of black employees.