"Funding in Question for AACC Library/Gallery"

"Funding in Question for AACC Library/Gallery"

The Nubian Message, North Carolina State University's African American student newspaper, was first published on November 30, 1992. In this September 5, 1996 article, News Editor Fred Frazier covered the struggles of the African American Cultural Center (AACC) to support a library and art gallery in the face of limited staff and funds. Like the AACC more broadly, Frazier reported, the AACC library and art gallery had long suffered from budget shortfalls, and because they were not frequently publicized, low patronage as well.

The AACC library, now called the AACC Reading Room, contains books by and about Africans, African Americans, and other members of the African Diaspora. The AACC Art Gallery hosts visiting artists and exhibits related to African-American history, culture, and social issues. The historical roots of The Nubian Message lie in black students' calls for an African American cultural center on NCSU's campus, which sparked a years-long debate over race and racism between the promoters of a cultural center and their opponents. This article continued coverage of the center, which was ultimately established in 1992 but suffered from funding shortages for much of the 1990s.

Fred Frazier, News Editor

Fred Frazier, "Funding in Question for AACC Library/Gallery," The Nubian Message 5, no. 3 (September 5, 1996): 1. Digitized by the Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC.

1996-09-05

Rose Buchanan

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Funding in Question for AACC Library/Gallery

By Fred Frazier

In a turn of events not uncanny to this complex, the African American Cultural Center's library has, once again, run into staffing problems. Normally the library operates from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., with a part-time staffer from D.H. Hill Library working for 4 hours, and offers some weekend hours along with two part-time graduate students who aide in keeping the library open during its peak hours.

Dr. Iyailu Moses, director of the Afrikan American Cultural Center under whose jurisdiction the library falls, said "It's a hassle wondering every year if the library will have the support necessary for keeping the library operational during the course of the academic calendar."

In addition to the part-timer from D.H. Hill, and the graduate students, the AACC Library has work study students who come in and work, but that work is according to time they have in their schedule and may not always coincide with times the library actually needs to be staffed.

With these fluctuations, Moses doesn't know how it can be staffed on a regular basis. Plus, double that with the fact that a decision regarding whether or not the Graduate students will be in the budget, is still up in the air at this point because the powers that be are currently in budget negotiations.

In regards to the Art Gallery, there is little to no outside press for this feature of the second floor of the AACC.

"It seems they treat this as a secondary concern - as if there is no commitment to this program," Moses said.

"If the library is not staffed, then it will not be able to operate, and even then if it's not utilized, the library may be slowly - but surely - phased out of existence, which would be a travesty in the eyes of the many who fought for the Afrikan American Cultural Center in 1992."

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