In the last installment, we discussed life in the segregated rural south in the mid 1950.s Now, I don’t want to leave the impression that I totally did not like the south or its people.

In general, it’s a relaxed area of the country in which to live and the people an inherent gentility that we midwesterners can’t imagine. But on the issue of race they were at that time in my opinion totally misguided. And they didn’t particularly care for goddamnyankees.

To set the time line for this period, George Preston Marshall was popularizing the then small-time NFL by, against the advice of his colleagues, televising the games of his all white Washington Redskins throughout the southeastern United States. The civil rights movement had started and African Americans who exercised their first amendment right to peaceably assemble in order to demonstrate for the right to vote, for example, were tear gassed and cattle prodded by the police and sheriffs that should have been protecting them from the seething white mobs that surrounded them.

It was in this atmosphere in 1959 I entered college at North Carolina State College in Raleigh. NC State was at that time I’m sure the only “integrated” college in North Carolina, or for that matter, the whole southeast but the word “integrated” is really over-stating the situation. Certainly the College Administration was quiet about it: most parents would not allow their offspring to attend a college that admitted blacks. But there were a couple of dozen African American students on campus, many were excellent students and part of the student leadership. For the most part, there was no visible discrimination on campus that I saw, anyway, except that there were only a couple of dormitories available to them. They did not participate in the major sports of football, basketball and baseball: we were in the ACC which also contained two teams from South Carolina, which did not allow athletic events involving mixed races. We had no problem entertaining teams that had black members, and again, I noticed no problems, and remember black members of opposing
basketball teams leaving the court to tumultuous applause after playing exceeding well. African Americans did play minor sports: apparently they didn’t have to travel to South Carolina. During intra-mural football, this was my first experience playing football against African Americans, but again, except for some good natured ribbing, there weren’t any problems that I noticed. There’s an important exception to all this which I’ll explain later.

The problem with this seeming idyllic situation is that NC State is located in Raleigh, which was completely and totally segregated. Across the street from campus, as with most major institutions of higher learning,, were several blocks of wonderful, interesting places: bars(18 year olds were allowed to drink beer at that time), restaurants, movie theaters, book stores and more. But the bars, restaurants and movie theaters(and any other place that involved public gathering) were strictly segregated and the owners adamant in there refusal to serve blacks. At one point a couple of ROTC staff opened a bar called “The Sergeants” and tried to serve black customers, but the result was not good with many fights, brawls, etc, and they eventually had to become segregated. So the blacks were basically confined to campus, eating at college facilities and depending on the college for entertainment. Makes me shudder to think about it.

As for me, well, North Carolina State was a southern school in name only. It was and is one of the best engineering schools in the country with many students from north of the Mason Dixon line. Also, I believe that prejudice is based on ignorance, and not being the dullest knife in the drawer, found that most of my friends were either from the north, near the top of the class, or both. So, when hanging out in a bar or restaurant, we would often discuss the possibility of serving minorities. Of course we ran into brick walls, and could have made ourselves unwelcome at
some places like those that would “close before I’ll serve a God Damned Nigger” if we hadn’t had the sense to shut up.

So this was the situation in which I found myself: all around us and deeper into the south, negroes were trying to get admitted to white schools with the resulting riots, police brutality and the like. I seem to have found my way to an institution that was a little more progressive, but far from racially blind.