Student strike - a chancellor reflects

              Student Strike /
A Chancellor Reflects
When the Class of 1969 returned
to UNC-G in May for its tenth
reunion, some of them cast a nostalgic look at the activism of their
years on campus. It was a period
of drastic change in social regulations and curricular requirements,
but the undisputed highlight of
the decade was the student strike
in behalf of ARA food service employees. The recollections of Dr.
James Ferguson, Chancellor of
the University at the time, are
reported on these pages. The
events as recalled by Randi Bryant
Strutton, president of the Student
Government Association in
1968-69, follow on page 5.
I am often asked if UNC-G had any
great troubles during the period of
student activism during the 1960s and
1970s. My reply has been that we had
some anxious moments, some periods
of crisis, but never any violence. As a
matter of fact, when crises arose, we
were able, usually, to bring about a
settlement of disagreements by bringing together the disputants and involved faculty and students and administration in the solution.
The greatest moment of anxiety
that I can recall in this area came on
the night of March 31, 1969, and it
was in connection with the cafeteria
strike on this campus. There had been
cafeteria strikes earlier at the University at Chapel Hill and at A & T State
University across town. Our food
service — ARA — was also the firm
that served A & T State University at
that time, and, of course, the one
against whom the strike at A & T had
been directed. It was also true that
many of the cafeteria workers on our
campus were students al A & T. A
strike here after those at the other institutions was, I suppose, inevitable,
and one was initiated the latter part
of March, 1969.
The workers quickly formed an
organization and submitted a lengthy
list of demands to ARA similar to the
demands that had been presented at
A & T. Indeed, the leadership of the
strike was the same here as at A & T.
The Student Government Association
on the UNC-G campus threw its support behind the workers even to the
point of utilizing money from student
activity fees to hire an attorney to
represent the group. The students
supported the strike in a number of
ways: They conducted demonstrations, noisy but never out-of-line.
They also attempted to boycott the
cafeteria. Actually, a boycott worked
to ARA's advantage because they had
anticipated the strike and had laid in
a supply of pre-packaged food. It was
possible for them to use administrative staff and supply the food to
students who came to the cafeteria.
Obviously, if there was a boycott,
there would be fewer people to serve
and ARA would be fulfilling its contract which required them to supply
food to the students who had food
contracts with them.
Seeing the futility of the boycott,
the students changed their strategy
and shifted to an "eat-in." That is,
everyone was encouraged to go over
to the cafeteria at the same time and
to request as much food as would be
given them. They went back for
seconds, thirds, fourths; indeed,
there was a great deal of wasted food.
This tactic did not succeed either in
preventing ARA from meeting its
obligations.
The most effective thing the students did in support of a strike was
the hiring of a lawyer, Henry C. Frye,
who was then and is currently a member of the state legislature. He met
with the students and eventually with
members of the administration to inaugurate discussions with regard to
the strike. It should be pointed out
that the strike was not against the
University but against the caterers;
yet, there was no way that the University could fail to be affected. It
was our students who had contracted
with ARA. The effort of the administration was directed first towards
seeing that food service was provided,
and secondly, toward supplying our
good offices to speed negotiations.
We tried to provide space for meetings and enter into communication
that would facilitate the arrangement
of these. In other words, we tried to
be the brokers that would produce a
settlement of the strike.
Initially, the strike was not a black
and white issue, but in time an element of race conflict was involved
because most of the workers were
blacks. As matters developed, it
seemed clear that the black workers
were not enthusiastic about accepting
white leadership either among the
students or within the administration.
The administration did make it clear
that students and workers had the
right of freedom of assembly but not
the right to obstruct or disrupt activities in the cafeteria through excessive
noise.
There was only one instance in
which there seemed to be a direct
violation of the ground rules that had
been set up^on this: It was by a student from A & T State University,
Nelson Johnson, who at that time
was vice president of student government at A & T. At noon on Monday,
March 31, Mr. Johnson used a microphone to address a number of the
students who were in the cafeteria
and to assemble the demonstrators. A
black student who was sympathetic
with the strike recognized that this
was in violation of the ground rules
governing the use of the cafeteria for
assemblies and not only confronted
Nelson Johnson but also took the
microphone from his hands. This
brought a tense moment but after a
few minutes, matters did quiet down.
Oi
*? '£