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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 _ : W: = - TS TR LTR .‘:—‘.‘ .‘"w:' ”‘.-‘ & ‘-' s (:;}j{?}-.—--'gy‘fl 3 f‘!'.“;{:,o,jlv’ TR Bt sl IR NI RTy "“{?‘;‘%Wfi‘:}" A j S D "™ @TOYOTA | R, L RIS S ; g ] O R S - L ; S s T o s moving forward » .~ " “\ : . v _‘4}‘ ‘} LT BR ' e ; sßt ‘. 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His mathematical equations gave rise to the age of information, which has helped us all move forward. toyota.com e RN IO FT O Lms e p AN SDI 3 W"@* e For LAt g,m; i W e AR e ! / Gt 8 it Uinh e’: 4 ] XS4 ] b ; L ‘ v, i A Wf_; B 2005 ToyoteMotor Sales, US A Inc 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