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Meredith: Colleges challenged to keep tuition low
% DICK PETTYS
Political Writer
ATLANTA (AP) -
Georgia's public colleges
and universities are on the
road to greatness but face
tough new challenges in
an era of tighter state
budgets, Chancellor
Thomas Meredith told his
board Wednesday, Feb. 2.
To prevent quality from
slipping, the system must
continue to seek new
research grants and slim
down, he said, but he also
cautioned that the con
tinuing financial pressure
“may c%\allenge our ability
to keep tuition low.”
He commented in his
annual “State of the Sys
tem” address to the Board
After 45 years, pastor recognizes
impact of lunch counter sit-ins
By JOHN BOYLE
Asheville Citizen-Times
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP)
— He can still feel the chill.
It wasnt from the cold.
The tingling uneasiness
came from being in a place
where he knew he wasn't
wanted.
“The response was very,
very cold and very danger
ous,” said the Rev. Dr
Charles R. Mosley, recalling
the day in 1960 when he and
several of his Shaw Universi
ty classmates decided they
would stage a sit-in at a diner
in Raleigh. “There were agi
tators and hecklers. There
were some very unfavorable
comments using the N
word. They were determined
we were not going to be wel
comed.”
Mosley and about 200
Shaw students coordinated
their efforts with those of
other college students in
Greensboro. On Feb. 1,
1960, the “Greensboro
Four"- Ezell Blair, Jr. (now
Jibreel Khazan), David Rich
mond, Franklin McCain
and Joseph McNeil — began
a sit-in at a Woolworth’s
lunch counter.
The protest technique
spread to other sites
tfiroughout the state, garner
ing worldwide media atten
tion and eventually spurring
desegregation of public facil
ities.
But at the beginning of the
movement, success seemed
far, far away.
"*Rather than serve us, the
stores would close the lunch
counters,” said Mosley, a
Kenilworth resident and pas
tor of Nazareth First Baptist
Church in Asheville for 30
years. *'They would ignore
us and say, ‘We're not serving
at this time,’ or, “The count
er is closed.” We would stay
for awhile, and then wed
come back later.”
Mosley, like most of his
friends, was arrested and
charged with trespassing and
obstructing justice, charges
that were later dropped. In
many ways, the courts were
the least of their worries.
The idea among the agita
tors was not only to start a
fight but also to intimidate
the protesters.
“The most intimidatin
agitating was done witE
threats —what they would do
to us if we persisted in what
we were doing at those coun
ters,” said Mosley, 66.
“I was frightened, know
ing what had happened in
Alabama and Mississippi ... .
All of this was quite uncer
tain to us, but we felt we had
a mission we would fulfill,
even if it cost us our lives.
Even if we would've become
victims of violence or even a
casualty, we felt the price was
of Regents, governin
board of the state’s 3§
public institutions.
Citing oft-repeated sta
tistics, Meredith said the
system has lost $378.2
million to state budget
cuts since 2001 while
enrollment grew by
44,000 students.
There will be some
relief in the budget year
beginning July 1 when
the agency receives an 8.3
percent increase, he said.
But in Georgia, as in
states across the country,
Fublic higher education
aces enormous competi
tion for state dollars From
other agencies as a result
of surging Medicaid costs,
a soaring prison popula
tion and rising hea?th care
worth it to be free.”
Dwight Mullen, a political
science professor at UNC
Asheville, says it’s easy to for
get how charged the social
climate was in 1960. The
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. led the civil rights move
ment, pushing for change in
a South suill controlle§ by
Jim Crow laws that kept
blacks from receiving equal
treatment in nearly all
aspects of life.
“The Greensboro sit-ins
began about six years after
the Brown v. Board of Edu
cation decision that ended
segregation, that said it was
unconstitutional,” Mullen
said. “So you're talking about
a pretty long time befgore the
universities began being
affected. These were students
who were actually following
the example of what King
had done with the Mont
gomery bus boycotts.”
This was also during the
time of the *'Freedom Rid
ers,” groups of blacks and
whites who rode buses
throughout the South, carry
ing a message of desegrega
tion by trying to integrate
bus stops. Tficy were fre
quently attacked and beaten
by angry crowds.
In Smrt. times were tense
when the Greensboro Four
and the other students
including Mosley began
their lunch counter sit-ins.
“Every place responded
differently, but everyone
knew that one of the things
that could happen was phys
ical harm,” Mullen said.
“The Ku Klux Klan was very
clear about that at the time.”
Mosley and his fellow stu
dents were well aware of the
dangers.
“We would walk in
groups, at least two of us,”
MosE’y said. “We were given
directions not to respond to
the agitators or hccEl(:rs, to
ignore them, and by all
means to refrain from get
ting into physical confronta
tions.
The students persisted,
juggling their academic
coursework with social
protest. Mosley was a double
major in religion and social
studies.
In a matter of months, the
whites running the lunch
counters relented. The black
men were served just like
their white counterparts.
“I was one of the first ones
seated,” Mosley recalled. "It
felt like a door was open,
although you could feelptehc
tension _ the waitresses were
unfriendly. We felt like we
had won at least one battle
when the counters started
serving us. | was there when
the shackles fell off and they
were demanded to serve us.
Mostly they ordered cof
fee. Thuchiilly, they. dida
AUGUSTA FOCUS
costs for state employee
benefit plans, he said.
“We must be prepared
for an era of tighter state
budgets,” Meredith told
the anrd.
Last fall, the board flirt
ed with the notion of an
unprecedented midyear
tuition hike after Gov.
Sonny Perdue told strug
ling agencies they migfit
?acc more budget cuts.
Perdue persuaded uni
versity system leaders to
drop the idea and the
bud%ct proposal he subse
quently presented — still
before the Legislature - is
far less damaging than it
was advcrtisccf to be.
Still, tuition remains a
sensitive topic for the
university system and it is
enjoy the taste of it that
much, but they savored its
meaning,
To this day, though,
Mosley isn't much of a cogcc
drinker.
“We prevailed,” Mosley
said. “Tl’F:e reason, truthfully,
I do not drink coffee today is
because I thought that coffee
was so hot 1t had come
straight out of hell.”
Mullen says the lunch
counter sit-ins rank in the
“top five” of Civil Rifihts
social protests, right up there
with the Montgomery bus
boycott, the integration of
Litdle Rock High School in
Arkansas and the Freedom
Riders.
“The folk didnt know
how historic these things
would turn out to be,”
Mullen said. “Later on in the
movement, say by ‘65, folk
were really understanding
the role the media played in
all this. But in 1960 there
was no reason to think this
would cause worldwide
attention and turn out to be
a landmark.”
North Carolina, and par
ticularly tourist—dcpcncrcnt
Asheville, were well aware of
the negative reaction much
of the country had had to
racial strife in the deep
South. The policy favored by
whites of essentially stalling
integration as long as possi
ble, called '‘gradualism,”
began to yield to true deseg
regation, all because of col
lege students who wanted to
be served at lunch counters.
“For North Carolina, it
really did set an example,”
Mullen said, “because the
(store owners) made a deci
sion of keeping the lunch
counters open. And they
knew if they kept them
open, they were pretty much
e:lpccted to be desegregat
ed.
Mosley, who graduated
from Asheville’s all-black
Stephens-Lee High School,
in 1957, also saw the
changes.
4 “I think the foundation of
oors openin an with
the student si?-int:k he said.
“As the counters opened, we
fouqd other doors opening,
t0o.”
But Mosley never rested
on those laurels, and he
believes blacks still must
fight complacency and
remain especially vigilant in
voting.
“I'still think we have prob
lems in housing, in lack of
employment, in hungering
for achievement,” Mosley
said. “There should c})c
uality for all le, and I
:?ill :Zi?k thgtco}t)her;’;a a
d of segregation today,
b:?:le:e comes in a different
form. She wears - different
mask.”
one that arises each year.
Every time the state
puts more money into
public colleges and uni
versities, tuition must be
increased to preserve the
two-thirds to one-third
ratio that lawmakers years
ago established as the
benchmark between pub
lic support for higher
education and tuition
paid by students.
Meredith named a task
force last fall to study the
system’s tuition status and
to explore possible inno
vative approaches. He
plans to report the find
ings to the board in the
next few months.
“Our goal all along has
been to keep tuition as
low as possible,” he told
N.C. school closes because of offensive graffiti
BEIDSVILLE. DL
(AP) — Reidsville High
School administrators
shut down school and
canceled an evening bas
ketball game after finding
offensive graffiti on the
outside of three school
buildings.
Rockingham County
Schools Superintendent
Walter Bromenschenkel
declined to say what was
painted at the school.
Graffiti also was found on
a wall at Reidsville Middle
School next door, but
officials would not say if
the two incidents are con
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reporters later. “And we've
been pretty successful at
that - 15th out of 16
(southern) states for the
four-year (colleges) and
13th out of 16th with the
two year.”
Among some of the pos
sibilities under study:
charging more for junior
and senior courses, which
cost more to deliver;
charEini more for classes
in high-demand areas;
charging less for classes
concFuctcd at 8 a.m. and 5
p.-m., the least popular
times, or charging more
for classes between 10
a.m. and 2 p.m., the most
popular times.
Meredith also
announced three public
forums on Feb. 14, 16
nected.
Custodians were the
first to arrive at the school
Wednesday and police
were called by 6:30 a.m.
School employees called
parents at home to let
them know the school was
closing. Those students
who weren’t notified and
arrived by bus were sent
home.
Teachers used their own
cars, trucks and vans to
block entrances to ‘the
school’s parking lot.
Reidsville Principal
Janet King said police will
be reviewing surveillance
February 10, 2005
. o Yl
Thomas Meredith
and 17 to hear concerns
from students, parents
and lawmakers about the
rising cost of textbooks.
He said that wil] lead to a
recommendation in the
next few months.
cameras located outside
the school. Maintenance
workers cleaned up the
graffiti, but the school
remained closed to stu
dents Thursday because of
winter weather.
King declined to con
firm student reports that
racial epithets had been
painted at the school.
The Reidsville chapter
of the National Associa
tion for the Advancement
of Colored People plans to
conduct an investigation,
NAACP member Rochelle
Tucker said.
13A