Impact of state trooper presence on campus during food workers' strike
Davis discusses tensions that resulted on campus from the presence of state troopers during the food workers' strike of 1969. Following a skirmish between students in the cafeteria, Governor Terry Sanford had sent in state troopers to try to control the situation. According to Davis, this decision actually tipped support more in favor of the striking food workers because people were discomforted by the presence of state troopers on campus. Davis describes how the resulting tensions surrounded efforts to discipline members of the Black Student Movement.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Ashley Davis, April 12, 1974. Interview E-0062. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
So, while this was
going on, we got us a record player and we were over in Manning and we
were laying it on them, "don't eat in the pig pen
with the pigs" and all this kind of good old action. And oh, by
the way, the governor called the Chancellor on the telephone and said,
"I don't care what you said about that building, I
want those students out of there." So, the Chancellor
didn't want to look real bad, he didn't want to go
back on his words, I guess. He didn't want to use force. So,
what he did, he sent campus police over every night to come through the
building and what they would attempt to do was to catch the building at
one time…and they would come through there and lock doors
systematically as they through and if they could catch that building
empty, they would lock it up. You see what I mean? And lock
people out and then arrest anybody that tried to
break back in. See, that was the strategy, to lock you out. So, we had
to keep black students in there twenty-four hours a day, so we slept
over there. A lot of us slept over there in order to keep the police
from coming in and throwing people out. O.K., so like I say, this kind
of generated things and we got more white kids involved, more involved
in what was going on. Finally the decision came up, the thing came to a
head. While all this was going on, by the way, let me tell you what was
happening. The University, it was planned, certain things had been
planned. Like when we got arrested at Lenoir, after Lenoir, warrents
were being prepared and over in the PoliSci Department and over in the
Institute of Government, strategy was being planned. "How can
we punish these students and satisfy some people in Raleigh, but at the
same time, not anger a lot of other people in North Carolina."
Either way it was a touchy situation. "How can we punish these
students involved in this cafeteria thing in a way that won't
cause our normally passive faculty and staff to get up on end. If we
punish these kids too hard, it might cause problems." This was
the way that we saw it. It might cause a general strike, and that would
be a problem. "And we have seen what has happened already by
being inactive and not doing some things generally with these kids.
We've seen what kinds of problems happened, so we need to do
something." All right, so what they did, they worked on the
strategy, and the word that come from Raleigh was
that we were supposed to be arrested. That was the word from Raleigh,
"You arrest." Now, a couple of things they said. First
of all, "Clear them kids out of Manning." I told you
what his first strategy was. Second thing was, "Arrest those
people in that cafeteria strike. Because no blacks in North Carolina are
going to go up there and take over a state university
cafeteria." I can see that echoing in the old halls of Raleigh
right now. That was part of it. So, like I say, the people at this end
were faced with the problem of how they could keep trouble from
escalating. So, the word I got was that there was a strategy being
planned and warrents were being drawn up over this period of time. This
is right after the cafeteria strike and on. So, we had gone on for
awhile for then, so finally, they really had the strategy and they had a
big day they had planned and everything. So, what they did, on the
morning of this particular day, the Chancellor of the University called
Julius Chambers and told him that he ought to come to Chapel Hill. This
is what I understand. The attorney. Because certain parties are going to
be arrested. All right, the Chapel Hill police were out in battallions
to serve some warrents. And I mean, they were in full battle dress to
serve these warrants, by the way. I think they served ones to six
people. All this is in one day now. I was in class that day. I had gone
to class and a lot of white kids and everybody, and what the police had
done… I didn't even know it was going on, but when
I got out of class, the State Troopers had Manning
completely surrounded, see. We kept hearing noise and the kids pushing
in and the State Troopers, "Get back, get back." You
know. So, what had happened, this is when they took over the building.
My understanding is that Howard Fuller just happened to be over here, I
don't know how he was here. Somebody called him, or he showed
up, I don't know what on that day. But Howard Fuller was
going in and everybody made the assumption that the brothers in the
building were going to stand there and try to hold the building against
the armed with guns State Troopers. Which was foolish. I mean, this was
foolish. People wondered what in the world…they laughed about
that. That's foolish. You think we were going to stand out
there and get shot? It's one thing to stand out
there with some canes and all and talk junk with the police, I mean, all
he's got is a stick and all you've got is a stick
and ya'll out there battling. Now, we had one morning when we
thought that the police were going to try and… and this is
where I say that the tactics of making the legal illegal was first used
on the strike when they had a group of people and what they would do,
they closed off their end of the cafeteria and we came out, we were
around at the northern end at this part, where you enter at that little
back door at the side, marching. They said that we were marching too far
out and they wanted to close us in to march some. So, they kept closing
in the march and closing in the march. Well, it gets to a point where
you can't close in the march anymore,
because the people involved in the march. Well, this is where the
illegality comes in. So, a guy comes out with a megaphone and says,
"Well, you marching there, I'm only going to tell
you one more time, don't go out of the marching
area." You couldn't understand the guy.
"What we say is this," is what he was saying,
"when we see the opportunity, we're going to beat
you." And you could look down the street and you could see the
police cars sitting like this, you know, one on one side of the street
and one on the other and if you have watched any movies about New York
City, you know that when that happens… they had pulled the
police cars down, they had barricaded all around the area, so when we
went out there, we said, "These cats, man, they want to beat
some ass this morning. They want to beat somebody." So, we went
on into Manning and looked out and we wouldn't come out
there. Anyway, so when I got out of there, I went running over to the
middle of campus and there were a lot of students standing around in the
middle of the campus. Things had really kind of come to a head and we
found out that some warrants had been issued for some arrests and some
of the kids who had heard that there were some warrants out for them had
already kind of been ducked out and they went over to Michael
Katz's house, who was an attorney, a law instructor in the
Law School. And we all sat around at his house waiting for Chambers, who
we found out the Chancellor had called already to come to Chapel Hill.