University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - Yackety Yack Yearbook (Chapel Hill, NC)

Page 25 text:

blackness: If I had to date it I guess lid saythe black thing hit Carolina in the fall of 1969. By the middle of the spring semester it was all over the campus. A lot of the so called leaders of the black students had it. It seemed to follow two rules. The blacker your skin the harder you preached it and conversely the lighter your shade the harder your rap too. The liberal whites had it so bad all the blacks avoided them. It was strange. A liberal white would come up to a group of us. After a few minutes the most sen- sitive in the crowd would start to get sick. The white cat would rap loud and long about the problems of the poor and the black Then held go out to the lot and jump into his big car and hot to his pad. You could measure the intensity of his speech by the distance he lived from us and the poor whites. Several times that semester I was sick to my stomach. The super blacks were almost as bad though. Their only mea- sure of merit was the number of blacks involved. It didn't matter that their own black student group had been unable to mobilize black students to tutor other blacks. It didn't matter that the town blacks needed help. What mattered was purity. The program had to be purely black. They were true to their principles those super blacks. They never did let whites get in- volved. A lot of kids flunked out 7 that year, but they went out with pure minds.

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The only issue of any substance that pre- sented itself on the UNC campus was the renewed squabble between cafeteria workers and SAGA foot service. Charges were made against both sides concerning working hours. pay scale and working conditions. SAGA, in an attempt to make ends meet. began to prune workers from its salary lists. Rev. Ralph Aber- nathy put in an appearance on behalf of the black workers, and students avoided Lenoir in sufficient numbers that SAGA decided to abandon Chapel Hill for brighter climes. That left the University in a dilemma; whether to pick up the pieces itself. seek elsewhere for another catering service, or close down the campus dining halls permanently. It was not difficult to say just where the action was. There was none. During the winter of their content the students, perhaps them- selves weary of the frenetic activity of the Sixties, settled back into their plastic Chairs. t tutti ' llJlleWlellt . .tutlt'tllt lfhtt' t1 1'1 . ttl ; I Whit I l t In tt '7'? Yttllh- , tilt I 43A , 3' '

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We had some high school kids up one weekend to see the school and hear the bit about come to Carolina. They were given the red carpet treatment and even housed in a university dorm. How liberal can you get? One of the things the kids did while they were here was to listen to a talk by a real big muoktey muck super black leader. This cat was for real-he hated whites so much the sight of one nearly sent him into a rage, On campus he stayed nearly in a rage a lot. Foam around the mouth, the whole scene. Anyway this cat got up and delivered one hell of a speech. He talked about the revolution. He urged the kids to stick together. He said a white man was dirty. He was less than dirt. He was shit. The cat raved on for an hour. His blackness was down on him. None of the high school kids. not a one, dug his speech, They all came from integrated schools. Most of them were from rural counties. These kids knew whites and disliked much of what they knew, but they disliked this super-blaok even more. Behind his back they laughed at him. To his face they praised his speech. but back in their rooms they laughed. With his blackness down on him they thought he was a fool. During this period a lot of our black leaders were being laughed at. The bluff they had come down with the year before had run out. Our leaders were all talk. No action just talk. They were caught up so in their own speeches that . . . . Well, their blackness was down on em. Blackness came down on a lot of cats that term. It was like a plague. It crept into every nook and crany of campus. It pulled oats out of their classes. broke up couples, Chained people to their beds. Nobody did anythingeall the cats just talked on and on. it was impossible to argue or reason with a eat when black- ness was down on him-he knew it all. Kelly Alexander, Jr.