Allen Building Crisis: Tape #1
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| - | County Sheriff's Department, Durham City Police, | 0:02 |
| North Carolina State Highway Patrol, | 0:05 | |
| are massed some 70 to 100 strong, | 0:07 | |
| in the Duke Gardens parking lot, awaiting orders. | 0:11 | |
| This is 6:40, an hour after | 0:16 | |
| the ultimatum time was supposedly up. | 0:18 | |
| - | Are now lining up, they've gotten out of their cars, | 0:30 |
| each man has a club, a gun, | 0:32 | |
| and he's wearing his protective helmet. | 0:33 | |
| They seem to be ready to move out now, | 0:36 | |
| and we'll try to follow along with them. | 0:38 | |
| - | Tear gas cans, and they've just loaded 'em up. | 0:40 |
| Still in the parking lot, lined-up. | 0:43 | |
| - | Mass Troopers are now | 0:46 |
| starting to march through the Gardens. | 0:48 | |
| They are all armed with clubs, ah, | 0:52 | |
| three tear gas guns, foggers that I can count. | 0:56 | |
| A couple of riot guns. | 0:59 | |
| Each man, of course, has his pistol, | 1:01 | |
| and they're all equipped with a gas mask. | 1:02 | |
| So, we're marching through the Gardens now. | 1:05 | |
| The force, as we said before, some 70 to 100 strong. | 1:08 | |
| (stop button clicking) | 1:12 | |
| Stopped now, a few hundred yards from the building. | 1:15 | |
| Still in the Gardens, | 1:17 | |
| they're all putting on their gas masks. | 1:18 | |
| They're preparing to march once again. | 1:20 | |
| We have now been informed they launched their guardsmen | 1:22 | |
| behind the State Highway Patrol. | 1:24 | |
| - | Surprisingly enough, as the police amass in the Gardens, | 1:26 |
| we've just been informed that the Black students | 1:31 | |
| vacated the Administration Building, | 1:33 | |
| and they have begun marching down Campus Drive, | 1:35 | |
| away from the Chapel. | 1:39 | |
| Blacks marched to the end of the drive, | 1:41 | |
| and then massed at the end of the circle. | 1:42 | |
| (stop button clicking) | 1:45 | |
| (crowd yelling) | 1:55 | |
| - | Supposedly the Blacks have | 2:07 |
| already left the building through the front. | 2:08 | |
| (crowd chanting) | 2:11 | |
| We'll find out later. | ||
| (stop button clicking) | 2:13 | |
| Those are the sounds of some kind of fogging devices. | 2:17 | |
| Tear gas foggers, presumably. | 2:20 | |
| (crowd yelling and chanting) | 2:23 | |
| Students are there now. | 2:28 | |
| (stop button clicking) | 2:29 | |
| - | Ned. | 2:31 |
| - | We have been meeting for two-and-a-half years | 2:39 |
| on the oldest demands, nothin' has come of 'em. | 2:42 | |
| Six months on the most demands, nothin' has happened! | 2:44 | |
| And today the University, again, refused to meet with us | 2:47 | |
| when we asked them to while were in there! | 2:51 | |
| So, we knew then that they wanted a confrontation, | 2:53 | |
| a violent confrontation, | 2:56 | |
| and I hope they've gotten what they wanted! | 2:58 | |
| - | And you, did you, can you tell me, please, | 3:00 |
| did you walk out to avoid | 3:02 | |
| a violent confrontation? | 3:03 | |
| - | Yes! | |
| - | Well, what was your reasoning in that? | 3:06 |
| Now, you wanted to just thwart | 3:07 | |
| the University authorities in other words? | 3:09 | |
| - | Right. | 3:10 |
| - | That's the reason that you | |
| decided to walk out? | 3:11 | |
| - | We went in there with | |
| no destructive purpose in mind. | 3:12 | |
| - | All right, that's exactly what we were aiming for. | 3:13 |
| - | Right, why did you | 3:15 |
| walk out of the building, and did | 3:16 | |
| anyone come in to get you? | 3:18 | |
| - | Did you see | |
| those bad boys out there? | 3:19 | |
| - | Yeah. | 3:20 |
| - | Why did the crowd start | |
| runnin' when they started comin' up through there? | 3:22 | |
| (stop button clicking) | 3:25 | |
| - | For more (echoes). | 3:27 |
| - | I talked with the guys inside about 10 minutes ago, | 3:33 |
| and they wanted me to tell you-all | 3:35 | |
| that everything went off as planned, | 3:37 | |
| that everybody was lunchin' out. | 3:38 | |
| There are no hostages and, ah, the buildin' is secure, | 3:40 | |
| the part that we decided to take. | 3:43 | |
| (crowd clapping and cheering) | 3:45 | |
| - | This is a spokesman for the Blacks in Allen Building. | 3:47 |
| - | The Afro-American Society of Duke University, | 3:50 |
| we feel that the demands, which have been in the Chronicle | 3:54 | |
| for the last few weeks or so, are very reasonable. | 3:57 | |
| And ah, we are sure that you will feel | 4:00 | |
| that did try to go through the, ah, | 4:04 | |
| so-called proper process to get our demands met. | 4:06 | |
| And um... | 4:10 | |
| I think Mr. Griffin said that they had | 4:11 | |
| employed a Black advisor, I'm not sure, is that correct? | 4:13 | |
| Did she say we had a Black advisor? | 4:17 | |
| - | They said that the commitment was made. | 4:19 |
| - | Oh, he said the commitment | 4:21 |
| has been made. | 4:23 | |
| - | That was over a week ago. | |
| - | Okay, he said that it was announced over a week ago. | 4:26 |
| But we feel it is important that we have our say, | 4:28 | |
| our control and our say-so in these, | 4:31 | |
| in all of these requests that pertain to Black students, | 4:34 | |
| like such as a Black Studies program, and a Black advisor. | 4:38 | |
| Because we feel deep down inside that history has shown | 4:41 | |
| that when we do not have control of it, | 4:45 | |
| we cannot rely on it. | 4:48 | |
| In other words, we feel that anything, | 4:49 | |
| such as a Black course or a Black advisor | 4:51 | |
| appointed by the administration, | 4:54 | |
| would not be beneficial to us. | 4:56 | |
| Such as, the history course would probably be watered-down, | 4:59 | |
| and their Black advisor would probably be just, | 5:02 | |
| another Senator Brooke, you know? | 5:06 | |
| He does not represent us, | 5:09 | |
| and he wouldn't give us what we are really askin' for. | 5:10 | |
| And so far as, I'm not gonna go through all of the points | 5:14 | |
| that we made because we feel that we did | 5:17 | |
| enough explainin' through the Chronicle, and various forms. | 5:20 | |
| For the housin', that's been the ah, everybody's been sayin' | 5:24 | |
| that we're a bunch of segregationists. | 5:28 | |
| We just want to have a place on campus | 5:31 | |
| where we can organize as a group, and you know, | 5:33 | |
| pay our dues, and have entertainment, | 5:36 | |
| and somethin' in common with | 5:38 | |
| the other people in the house that we enjoy. | 5:39 | |
| We're not knockin' anybody else who wants to, | 5:42 | |
| any Black student who wants to go another house. | 5:44 | |
| It's just that we wanna have an alternative. | 5:47 | |
| What we all hope to accomplish by ah, | 5:53 | |
| you might say seizin' a part of Allen Buildin' this morning, | 5:56 | |
| we just rented a U-Haul truck | 6:00 | |
| and brought a few people over to sleep with me and-- | 6:02 | |
| (crowd laughing) | 6:05 | |
| That's all there was to it! | ||
| (crowd chattering, laughing) | 6:08 | |
| This is supposed to be | ||
| a sort of a power play, we have to have somethin', you know, | 6:10 | |
| if we're gonna try to make some demands upon the University. | 6:13 | |
| With nothin', you know, you don't have anything to ah, | 6:15 | |
| no inner ground to bargain from. | 6:18 | |
| As you all probably know, | 6:21 | |
| we went over to Dr. Knight's house the other night | 6:23 | |
| with Dick Gregory, they say we were accompanied | 6:26 | |
| by Dick Gregory, which is correct, | 6:30 | |
| we went first and he came later. | 6:31 | |
| And we sat down and personally explained, you know, | 6:34 | |
| elaborated our demands to Dr. Knight, | 6:38 | |
| and expressed our feelin's to him. | 6:40 | |
| It was very orderly, as he said so in the Chronicle. | 6:43 | |
| Our play right now is to, ah, | 6:48 | |
| show the Trustees that we are together on this thing. | 6:50 | |
| We're aware that they are supposed be in town | 6:54 | |
| for a meetin' of the Board of Trustees. | 6:56 | |
| And ah, we thought that it was most appropriate | 6:59 | |
| that we should try to take part of Allen Building | 7:01 | |
| while they were in town so they would, | 7:03 | |
| wouldn't have to rely on the news media, | 7:05 | |
| which would sometimes, ah, distorts our purposes. | 7:06 | |
| (crowd laughing and clapping) | 7:10 | |
| Before now we had decided that | 7:19 | |
| the only correspondence to be made | 7:22 | |
| would be done by the Correspondent Committee, | 7:25 | |
| which is inside of Allen Buildin' right now. | 7:27 | |
| But a few minutes ago they decided | 7:30 | |
| that somebody should say somethin' to you people here, | 7:32 | |
| some of you who are sympathizers, | 7:36 | |
| the others who are, you know, set against it, | 7:38 | |
| but we felt that we should elaborate on it just a little. | 7:41 | |
| I'm gonna cut it short here, | 7:44 | |
| because the more the I say right here, | 7:45 | |
| the better the chance is that I'll say somethin' | 7:47 | |
| that somebody can find a vague contradiction in | 7:49 | |
| that they've already said on the inside. | 7:52 | |
| So, they told me just to tell you | 7:54 | |
| that everything was goin' well, | 7:56 | |
| and that they are prepared to stay for quite a while. | 7:57 | |
| - | Right on! | 7:59 |
| (crowd clapping and cheering) | ||
| - | That was a spokesman for the Blacks in Allen Building. | 8:02 |
| - | Chairman of the Academic Council, Dr. Cartwright. | 8:07 |
| - | Like Professor Blackburn, | 8:10 |
| I did not prepare a speech to give, | 8:11 | |
| I did not know I was coming over to this place | 8:13 | |
| until shortly before I came. | 8:15 | |
| And since my arrival I've been trying to listen to, | 8:17 | |
| and start the process of digestion of what my colleagues | 8:20 | |
| and students have said before me. | 8:23 | |
| I'm not one of the ones who can be sandwiched in | 8:26 | |
| between those who are on one side of an issue, | 8:28 | |
| and those who are on another side of an issue. | 8:31 | |
| I think there are two kinds of issues before us: | 8:34 | |
| one very big long-range one, | 8:36 | |
| and one that is an immediate one. | 8:38 | |
| On the part of the first one, | 8:42 | |
| if it sounds glib, go ahead and laugh, | 8:44 | |
| I want to assure you, and support it somewhat, | 8:47 | |
| that the organized faculty of this institution is | 8:50 | |
| greatly concerned about the problems of its Black students, | 8:53 | |
| and the resolution of those problems. | 8:57 | |
| I hope those of you who were here and heard Dean Griffith, | 9:00 | |
| know that a considerable amount | 9:05 | |
| of one kind progress or another has been made. | 9:07 | |
| I want to say for myself and for many of my colleagues, | 9:10 | |
| that I agree that not nearly enough has been made. | 9:13 | |
| But I wanna say also that the kind of progress | 9:17 | |
| that we have to have made on this, | 9:20 | |
| or any other major social issue in this country, | 9:22 | |
| or on this campus, will not be made overnight, | 9:25 | |
| and it will be not brought about | 9:29 | |
| with immediate desirable results as a result of violence. | 9:31 | |
| (crowd clapping) | 9:35 | |
| The issues that our Afro-American students raised | 9:40 | |
| were all of them important. | 9:44 | |
| And within each of them, in my judgment, | 9:47 | |
| and I take off the Academic Council hat | 9:49 | |
| and speak as a professor a minute, | 9:51 | |
| I cannot speak for the Council except as I am instructed, | 9:52 | |
| and I have not been instructed | 9:55 | |
| by the Council on this matter. | 9:56 | |
| But every one of the requests | 9:58 | |
| that our Afro-American students made | 10:02 | |
| has at least some of journal of justice in it. | 10:04 | |
| I am not saying that every one of them can be met overnight, | 10:08 | |
| and I do not understand all of them well enough | 10:11 | |
| to know whether, as-detailed, every one of them | 10:13 | |
| ought to be met in it's complete entirety at all! | 10:17 | |
| What we need to do is find out these things. | 10:21 | |
| Now, as informal groups and discussion has gone on, | 10:25 | |
| and some progress has been made, | 10:28 | |
| we have, indeed, over the months past | 10:30 | |
| in the Executive Committee of the Council | 10:33 | |
| and in conference between us, | 10:35 | |
| and members of the administration, and our colleagues, | 10:38 | |
| talked about these matters and how we might go about them. | 10:41 | |
| It was our hope, indeed, | 10:44 | |
| that they were working themselves out. | 10:46 | |
| We decided some time ago that at the next Council meeting | 10:50 | |
| we would bring the matter before the Council in total, | 10:53 | |
| and discuss what the Council ought to try to do about it. | 10:56 | |
| We have spent some hours | 11:01 | |
| talking about it in Executive Committee. | 11:03 | |
| After the... | 11:06 | |
| After the statement that came out | 11:09 | |
| in the Chronicle from the President's, | 11:11 | |
| their visit to the President's home the other day, | 11:14 | |
| we decided we could not wait, really, | 11:16 | |
| until the next scheduled meeting of the Council. | 11:19 | |
| The Executive Committee of the Council is not only that, | 11:24 | |
| it is also by the by-laws of the faculty | 11:26 | |
| the Committee on Committees of the University Faculty. | 11:28 | |
| And we approached President Knight | 11:33 | |
| and suggested that he utilize us to nominate a committee | 11:35 | |
| of faculty members whom we would choose | 11:39 | |
| because we thought they would reflect some breadth, | 11:42 | |
| some sympathy, some sensitivity, | 11:46 | |
| and command the respect of our colleagues, | 11:48 | |
| and have a degree of firmness. | 11:50 | |
| And the President agreed to this, and we have done this. | 11:52 | |
| This was not a reaction to what happened today, | 11:55 | |
| even though this coincides, it seems now, | 11:58 | |
| with what happened today. | 12:00 | |
| There is, I think, | 12:03 | |
| no way in which a university can operate successfully | 12:04 | |
| with great decisions on great issues | 12:07 | |
| being made in a terribly short period of time. | 12:10 | |
| And I think if anybody thinks that is true, | 12:13 | |
| he has not thought through the result | 12:15 | |
| of the kinds of problems that result | 12:17 | |
| when bad decisions are made quickly that way. | 12:20 | |
| But we do have every intention, | 12:24 | |
| some of our intentions may not work out. | 12:27 | |
| It is our hope that the Afro-American students | 12:30 | |
| and their leaders will eagerly seek-out | 12:33 | |
| and talk with the committee that we have asked to serve. | 12:35 | |
| They will certainly be approached by them. | 12:38 | |
| It is our hope that faculty members | 12:41 | |
| of different kinds of persuasions will eagerly do this. | 12:43 | |
| That they will not seek to say | 12:46 | |
| that things are not discussable, are not negotiable, | 12:48 | |
| must be settled this way now, or else. | 12:51 | |
| Because we can't settle things this way now or else, | 12:54 | |
| without having a violent upheaval, | 12:58 | |
| the immediate follow-up of which | 13:01 | |
| is not what even its own leaders ever wanted. | 13:02 | |
| Now, let me speak as a professor, | 13:07 | |
| and not as Chairman of the Council, for just a moment. | 13:09 | |
| I do not know what those who are really the people | 13:11 | |
| who have been charged with | 13:15 | |
| this kind of operation of the University | 13:18 | |
| will do about the situation across the quadrangle. | 13:20 | |
| I was in on discussing about this, | 13:23 | |
| and left them to come over and be with you. | 13:25 | |
| I am not the authority to speak on that matter. | 13:29 | |
| I hope and pray that there will | 13:32 | |
| not be violence used against violence now. | 13:33 | |
| On the other hand, I have to say as a professor, | 13:37 | |
| that if indeed, 50, or 60, or 75, or 100, | 13:42 | |
| or 200 students can decide that justice requires | 13:47 | |
| that they shall have their demands met | 13:52 | |
| now by force, or threat of force, | 13:55 | |
| then we have established a precedent. | 13:59 | |
| Some other 50, some other 75, some other 100, | 14:01 | |
| can decide it the next time, | 14:05 | |
| and you cannot operate a university that way. | 14:06 | |
| (crowd clapping) | 14:10 | |
| - | This is a statement of the position | 14:17 |
| of the Student Liberation Front | 14:19 | |
| as to the action taken by the Black students. | 14:20 | |
| The Student Liberation Front fully supports | 14:23 | |
| the demands and actions of the Afro-American Society | 14:26 | |
| taken this morning, February 13th. | 14:30 | |
| To that end, and in the spirit of the academic community, | 14:32 | |
| we are establishing a Freedom School | 14:36 | |
| on the third floor of Allen Building | 14:38 | |
| to demonstrate our solidarity with the Black students | 14:40 | |
| of Duke University, and consider the larger issue | 14:43 | |
| of racism in our society, thank you. | 14:46 | |
| - | Now, George Wood of the Historical Society. | 14:50 |
| - | Dr. Blackburn now speaking. | 14:55 |
| - | Carefully prepared the text. | 14:58 |
| We're in a very dangerous situation, | 15:00 | |
| as I think you-all should know. | 15:02 | |
| I think there is a great deal of concern | 15:07 | |
| on the part of the faculty for the role | 15:09 | |
| of Black students in the University. | 15:12 | |
| That concern has been coalescing during the last few days, | 15:15 | |
| long before the events of this morning. | 15:19 | |
| Some definite actions have been taken | 15:22 | |
| with respect to some of these problems. | 15:24 | |
| Dean Griffith will speak to some of them in just a moment, | 15:28 | |
| but we're moving very rapidly | 15:31 | |
| on the matter of Black living situation. | 15:33 | |
| We're making rapid progress on curriculum matters, | 15:38 | |
| on remedial, on matters of students | 15:42 | |
| that are having academic difficulties. | 15:45 | |
| I think you should know that things are, indeed, | 15:52 | |
| happening on these scores, and they're happening | 15:54 | |
| much more rapidly than they have been in the past. | 15:57 | |
| It's regrettable that we didn't move much more rapidly, | 15:59 | |
| I think, in my own personal opinion. | 16:02 | |
| I'm speaking only for me, not for anyone else. | 16:04 | |
| (crowd clapping) | 16:07 | |
| There was appointed last night a high-priority, | 16:12 | |
| high-level faculty task force to immediately reassess | 16:17 | |
| all of the aspects of the situations | 16:22 | |
| of Black students on the campus of Duke University. | 16:24 | |
| They will be talking with Black students, | 16:28 | |
| with any other students who want to talk with them, | 16:30 | |
| with faculty, with administration. | 16:33 | |
| Their charge is to take | 16:35 | |
| the problems that have been identified, | 16:37 | |
| to identify still other problems that there may be, | 16:39 | |
| to move rapidly for solutions of these problems, | 16:43 | |
| many of which do involve regularly-constituted student, | 16:46 | |
| faculty, and other University organizations. | 16:49 | |
| The Chairman of this task force | 16:53 | |
| is Professor Alen Kerckhoff in the Department of Sociology. | 16:54 | |
| I trust you will spare him the indignity | 16:59 | |
| of calling his committee the Kerckhoff Committee. | 17:01 | |
| (crowd laughing) | 17:05 | |
| So, I would like to assure you that the faculty is, indeed, | 17:10 | |
| more concerned than ever about these matters. | 17:13 | |
| There will be a faculty meeting this afternoon, | 17:16 | |
| and we're hoping to advance these things very rapidly. | 17:18 | |
| - | We're gonna try and go back-and-forth here too, | 17:32 |
| I have some people from both sides, | 17:33 | |
| and we'll try and balance it. | 17:35 | |
| - | This'll be Dr. Rainey of the History Department. | 17:36 |
| - | As an individual faculty member, I personally laud | 17:41 |
| the patience shown heretofore by the Afro-American Society. | 17:44 | |
| (crowd clapping) | 17:48 | |
| And urge my fellow faculty members | 17:52 | |
| to support the demands of the Afro-American Society. | 17:55 | |
| (crowd clapping) | 18:01 | |
| I think there are several levels of commitment, | 18:02 | |
| if I might use that term, for faculty members, | 18:05 | |
| I'd like to outline at least three. | 18:08 | |
| It seems to me that some faculty members | 18:12 | |
| can call for reason on the part of the administration, | 18:15 | |
| and urge them not to use force | 18:18 | |
| on the Blacks in Allen Building. | 18:20 | |
| Secondly, I think faculty members | 18:24 | |
| can join some of us in signing a petition. | 18:27 | |
| With your indulgence, I'll read briefly from this petition. | 18:30 | |
| "We, the undersigned faculty members of Duke University, | 18:35 | |
| "strongly support the general program | 18:38 | |
| "of the Duke Afro-American Society. | 18:40 | |
| "It's high-time that this university, | 18:43 | |
| "in line with action already taken | 18:45 | |
| "by such institutions as Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia, | 18:47 | |
| "begin to implement a solid Afro-American studies program, | 18:52 | |
| "and to recognize the very special needs, | 18:56 | |
| "academic and environmental, of the Black students | 18:59 | |
| "in this predominantly White university. | 19:02 | |
| "We feel further, that regional situations | 19:06 | |
| "and commitments of Duke University | 19:09 | |
| "further reinforce the need for immediate action. | 19:11 | |
| "As the events of Black Week at Duke | 19:15 | |
| "have aptly demonstrated, Black people in America | 19:17 | |
| "have a unique heritage, and have made a unique contribution | 19:20 | |
| "to American culture and history. | 19:24 | |
| "The total absence of a Black Studies program here | 19:27 | |
| "no longer can be tolerated, | 19:31 | |
| "for it is intellectually, as well as humanly indefensible, | 19:33 | |
| "and constitutes an educational deficiency | 19:37 | |
| "for both Black and White students. | 19:40 | |
| "We must at this time recognize, | 19:42 | |
| "and act upon our Black students' special needs, | 19:46 | |
| "insuring for them a nurturing academic | 19:50 | |
| "and social environment at Duke University. | 19:52 | |
| "Finally, we must recognize | 19:56 | |
| "that to label such indispensable attention | 19:57 | |
| "as 'reverse racism' is itself, under present circumstances, | 20:00 | |
| "a particularly vicious, if unintended, form of racism." | 20:06 | |
| There is another level of commitment for faculty members, | 20:13 | |
| and this one I recommend only for myself | 20:16 | |
| because of my own particular existential commitment | 20:19 | |
| to the Black problem in the South, | 20:22 | |
| as what you might call a repentant Southerner. | 20:24 | |
| And that is to join with a few of us that intend, indeed, | 20:28 | |
| to put our bodies on the line to keep the administration | 20:33 | |
| from using force at this time on the Afro-American Society. | 20:36 | |
| (crowd clapping and cheering) | 20:41 | |
| - | I'd like to speak very briefly, | 20:52 |
| and attempt to bring the group up-to-date | 20:54 | |
| on some of the activities of the past few months. | 20:56 | |
| - | This is Dean Griffith. | 21:00 |
| - | I think there's been | |
| a lot of rumor, some misinformation, | 21:02 | |
| as well as some accurate information. | 21:05 | |
| Back in October a group of faculty, administration, | 21:07 | |
| and members of the Afro-American Society | 21:11 | |
| began a series of meetings. | 21:15 | |
| The primary focus initially was to identify | 21:18 | |
| some of the needs of the Afro-American students | 21:22 | |
| as recognized by that group. | 21:26 | |
| This was the first time, to my knowledge, | 21:29 | |
| that there had been this type of identification. | 21:32 | |
| There were 12 particular points | 21:36 | |
| that were recognized as being ones of considerable concern, | 21:39 | |
| and I think there was agreement | 21:43 | |
| within this group of the concerns. | 21:44 | |
| I'd like to very briefly go over these 12 with you | 21:46 | |
| to indicate what has been done. | 21:50 | |
| And I'm speaking now | 21:54 | |
| what has been done weeks ago in regard to this. | 21:55 | |
| I've sat out here at forums | 21:59 | |
| and heard that nothing has been done. | 22:00 | |
| This is not the case, and some of our Afro-American friends | 22:03 | |
| realize that this is not the case. | 22:07 | |
| First: one of the areas of, I think, major concern, | 22:10 | |
| and perhaps most concern, was one of curriculum. | 22:15 | |
| Namely, Afro-American studies and Black faculty members. | 22:19 | |
| This is an area that perhaps is the most difficult, | 22:25 | |
| because it involves considerable financial outlay, | 22:29 | |
| it involves a resolution | 22:33 | |
| of curriculum concepts and new ideas, | 22:36 | |
| which can only be made within the faculty itself. | 22:40 | |
| And that is one of the reasons | 22:44 | |
| for the formation of the faculty group | 22:45 | |
| that was announced to you earlier by Professor Blackburn. | 22:49 | |
| So, I'm not gonna spend a great deal of time on this issue, | 22:53 | |
| because this was out of the domain | 22:55 | |
| of our particular committee, | 22:58 | |
| other than to go to the respective departments | 22:59 | |
| and make them aware of the problems as identified to us. | 23:02 | |
| Another question is one, and some of these are going | 23:07 | |
| to seem small questions to you at this particular time | 23:10 | |
| under these circumstances, but you oughta know them. | 23:13 | |
| Another question is the acquisition | 23:17 | |
| of periodicals and books in the library. | 23:18 | |
| These periodicals and series of volumes were identified | 23:23 | |
| and the library has added them to its collections. | 23:28 | |
| Another question was that of recruitment, | 23:33 | |
| recruitment of Black students | 23:36 | |
| and working with the recruiting process. | 23:38 | |
| Work was done with the Admissions Office. | 23:41 | |
| Dr. Ballantyne and Black students on two occasions thus far, | 23:43 | |
| have, in fact, made recruiting trips | 23:49 | |
| in the State of North Carolina, | 23:51 | |
| and plans were being made to have them participate | 23:53 | |
| at events outside of the State, | 23:57 | |
| particularly metropolitan areas. | 23:59 | |
| Again, I think you misunderstand some of the problems here | 24:02 | |
| that I think the Black students themselves have, | 24:05 | |
| and that is the ability to be away from campus | 24:07 | |
| at extended periods of time. | 24:11 | |
| In fact, the number of Black students in the University | 24:13 | |
| is also one that cannot be easily resolved, | 24:18 | |
| it involves a great financial commitment, | 24:21 | |
| and it is present ongoing deep consideration. | 24:24 | |
| This is something one cannot answer, though, | 24:28 | |
| in matter of one or two months. | 24:29 | |
| The question of a summer program for Black students, | 24:33 | |
| and a program that would continue into the academic year, | 24:35 | |
| I think you've seen the President's announcement | 24:39 | |
| that such a program would, in fact, take place this summer, | 24:41 | |
| beginning this summer. | 24:46 | |
| And a staff of deans are working, | 24:47 | |
| as well as faculty members, | 24:52 | |
| are working on the composition of this program | 24:54 | |
| in conjunction with Black students. | 24:56 | |
| Black Culture Week, you've already seen | 25:01 | |
| that there has been a Black Culture Week, | 25:04 | |
| and this has taken place. | 25:06 | |
| The question of a campus barber shop, | 25:08 | |
| the concern for the lack of someone there to cut Black hair. | 25:10 | |
| There is a vacancy now in the campus barber shop. | 25:15 | |
| I realize these sound like funny questions, | 25:20 | |
| but they were very serious issues at the time. | 25:22 | |
| There is a vacancy and a position is being interviewed | 25:27 | |
| of Black barbers, and is expected to be filled | 25:32 | |
| by a Black barber who can both White and Black hair. | 25:35 | |
| An advisor to Black students, I think, | 25:40 | |
| has already been spoken to by the President, | 25:42 | |
| and a commitment has been made | 25:45 | |
| that such an advisor will be available at the University | 25:47 | |
| for the next academic year. | 25:52 | |
| The question of office space for the Afro-American Society, | 25:54 | |
| a legitimate request they made, and it has been made | 25:58 | |
| available in the Union Tower room, two offices. | 26:01 | |
| The question of housing on campus. | 26:06 | |
| There has been set up, within the Trinity College area, | 26:11 | |
| the concept of a Living/Learning house, | 26:16 | |
| which will include the Afro-American Studies, | 26:20 | |
| Afro-American Studies program. | 26:24 | |
| One of the problems here is that there was | 26:28 | |
| a meeting scheduled yesterday with the Deans' staff | 26:29 | |
| with members of the Afro-American Society. | 26:32 | |
| Regretfully, they didn't show up | 26:35 | |
| to participate in this meeting | 26:37 | |
| to complete the resolution of this particular concept. | 26:39 | |
| In the question of off-campus housing, | 26:46 | |
| the invitation and the statement has been made | 26:50 | |
| that students who find illegal discrimination | 26:52 | |
| in off-campus housing should make this, | 26:57 | |
| should bring this to the attention of the University. | 26:59 | |
| There have been potential cases | 27:03 | |
| brought to the attention of the University, | 27:05 | |
| and action has been taken, but there have been now | 27:07 | |
| actual situations that have taken place | 27:10 | |
| that have been brought to the attention of the institution. | 27:13 | |
| The question of the President's membership | 27:16 | |
| in segregated country clubs, | 27:19 | |
| I think he spoke to that question. | 27:21 | |
| This was a personal decision of his and was not a matter | 27:24 | |
| that others of us had a great deal of input into. | 27:28 | |
| The question of public functions, which is the last item, | 27:32 | |
| of the playing of Dixie and the ah, | 27:35 | |
| use of the Confederate flag | 27:39 | |
| by formal organizations of the University, | 27:41 | |
| such as the Marching Band and the Pep band, | 27:44 | |
| as you well know, has been resolved. | 27:47 | |
| These are the questions | 27:51 | |
| that were identified in October. | 27:54 | |
| And I think you can see that, | 27:58 | |
| those in which there has been an ability | 28:00 | |
| to work with on an immediate context, have been resolved. | 28:03 | |
| Those other questions that still remain, | 28:09 | |
| which are primarily of a curricular nature, | 28:11 | |
| are questions that need time, and need the input | 28:14 | |
| of considerable numbers of the University community, | 28:18 | |
| and particularly the faculty, thank you. | 28:22 | |
| - | That was-- | 28:25 |
| This'll be way-- | 28:27 |
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