https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/54066/archive/files/141b2dbc0d46e9e420467a08eca9aeb8.pdf?Expires=1785369600&Signature=DvhRWRitucoWjqMoMyUhnOQ67fsadNIoX8NkMAU73%7E0dEinlhAJtt%7E3ollOPXupPPVAvT1mXznB7IG%7EriHnSsp36gpBUe-CS0DJQy1ZBstrtLw2Yl03WphDIriJaUD3LoFd2xRf8XbkUWUnfxOukYuUEyh2kHO62zFdsuHcJtL44zWbzFBmTZ1XhfIj0lJPlRYVJBECXqVV0SVsYV9MF98uOdwIwQgc1IfXS2wfIL8tTPzmub71gOFvOxkRyHqbiKJiUBdxtjINu1NMuR27wvYSjIaMkHI0n0bZBmFbErjmUDI49a7JDQfEMdnsY%7EgNGceTYLxyoZbBXwFOo4nCsgg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7bad795b7097872786850862caff5a25 PDF Text Text Tennessee Tech University Archives and Special Collections Transcript of clip from Celebrating a Legacy – Virtual Discussion and Q&A with the Founders of the Leona Lusk Officer Black Cultural Center Date: November 12, 2020 Time Transcript (h:min:sec) 00:00:01 Richard Fuqua: I think all of us were heavily involved with the—with NSBE [National Society of Black Engineers]. And we would go to various conferences on various campuses. And I just remember going to Vanderbilt and seeing all of the resources that many of those students had and had access to. And I left there thinking, “Why can’t we do that at Tech?” And then as we kind of went along and saw how student organizations were supported at the time. We did see a discrepancy—I saw a discrepancy of, of how funds were allocated for various student groups. And that was for me the start of, of thinking about creating something like that on campus. John James: And to mirror Richard’s point, definitely there was a component of we can bring a lot of African American and Black engineers to Tennessee Tech University, part of NSBE, and potentially think about hosting some regional conferences. So that started having the idea that wow, it’d be really good to have Tennessee Tech see that there were a lot of other students that could contribute. And I think there’s another part as relates specifically to the Black Cultural Center. And this is going to be me passing the baton on to James because in many ways I definitely give credit to James for the vision and stating it, a lot of that. Because to be very candid, myself, James, and Richard, we would hang out a lot on the weekends. A lot of students at the time—I don’t know what the dynamic is now, but we actually stayed on campus a lot. And there wasn’t a whole lot to do. And there was times when we started complaining about the lack of things to do. We started doing different things. I would go play racquetball with James and I would go play rugby. I even started taking up skydiving, that tells you how little there was to do. And we started talking about like there’s no place for us. And we started talking about it and complaining about it so much that eventually, to James’s credit, he said “well let’s start doing something about this. Why don’t we see about having a place for us to be able to express what we want and to do something.” So, I definitely would like to have James start to weigh in because—he may not want to own up to it, but I think a lot of his culture from Atlanta and the fact that you can do this and that Blacks can have a place for their own—a lot of that came from James, too. James Harris: Yeah, well, I appreciate that, John. I mean maybe it was part of being from Atlanta. I think there were a lot of things in my mind going on. You know that time period was a time of Spike Lee making Do the Right Thing and �Transcript of Running through Time - 2 Public Enemy. The time where young Black people were being to see themselves in media not as gangsters and hip-hop rappers, but just really as people who had a voice. And so, I think that was part of what was going on through my head. I played rugby for all of the five years I was at Tennessee Tech and had a lot of white friends, they would invite you to the Kappa Sig house. James: Yep. Harris: Mansion! I mean it wasn’t like, you know, one bedroom, two bath. It was upstairs, downstairs, basement, you know. And so, you know, you begin to wonder like, individually as a human, why don’t I deserve to have a mansion? Like you know, a nice refrigerator to go to, go into a big kitchen. And some Black students got together and at one point we actually rented a house. I think it almost broke us in renting a little two-bedroom house. But at some point we were trying to be selfsufficient and make that a reality. I think the other thing that was going through my head is that we were sharing Little Africa, right. I mean so, I think Little Africa had eight seats, nine, maybe twelve seats. And so, as somebody came in, someone would get up so someone could sit down. And if a lady came in, you let her sit down. And so, outside of being tired all of the time, it was like “why are all of us sharing like eight seats?” And so, I think it became a question of value, as a last point. So, you look at the student population of Tennessee Tech: roughly two percent Black. A lot of the students were on athletic scholarships and were producing value for the school but it seemed as though the school wasn’t really sharing that value. Now, providing education and giving support for education is a wonderful thing, but I just never was able to think that someone at the Kappa Sig house who would call me to come over to help them study for their test, deserved anything better than I deserved. And so, as Black students I think it was important for us to say if nothing else we wanted equal treatment. And we never really understood the politics and the financials of how a Kappa Sig house came to be, but as students of a state university who were adding value to the school, it seems like a room was not an outrageous request, to be honest with you. 00:05:00 Corey Prince: And hey, and James, you made reference to Little Africa. So there are quite a few students I understand that are checking in and watching this, so you may want to provide some clarity around what was that during that time? Harris: Yeah, so when you came up from the steps from checking the P.O. boxes— your mailbox—there were two sort of islands of seats. And the one on the right was Little Africa. That’s where all the Black students would hang out. Homework was done. I mean there were no cell phones back then really, so like you know— James: That’s right. Harris: --Bob’s looking for you, Johnny’s looking for you, did you get your homework? People would leave things under the seat. It was like, it was the—it was the only place we had. Literally. And it was cold in the winter when that door would �Transcript of Running through Time - 3 open and the wind would blow in. But it, it was, it’s interesting to look back 30 years later and think, I don’t think we were ever told “that’s where Black people stand,” but it just so happens that that’s where all the Black people would stand. And so, I think the Black Cultural Center was birthed out of our need to have space to think, do homework together, and to hold fraternity meetings, and to hold Black Student Organization meetings. And eventually have some art and other things. And so, yeah, yeah. Prince: And so, and so, obviously I’m sure the people who are watching are thinking that’s a big, that’s a big, sort of vision to have, right, to have as a student to be like, hey, I need a place. So I’m just curious to know, walk us through what were next steps? You guys had this experience at Vanderbilt. You saw it. And so now you got to implement, or you got to figure out a way to make this happen. What was the first thing that you guys did? Who did you talk to? Harris: Before Richard and John jump in, I want to add a little color to that. Like, we went to Vanderbilt’s Black Cultural Center and it’s an astonishing building. I remember leaving that building saying “they have fish tanks!” Like, they have real fish! Like, we were excited about the small things, you know, trash cans. We were over the top. And that just goes to show you how, you know, where our minds were. I’ll let Richard and John jump in on you know what was more of a context around that, but. Prince: Yeah, anybody, just your vision, like the vision, you thought about it, so what did you do, what do you do next? You know, how’d you get it done? Fuqua: I would, like I said, looking at—looking at it chronologically, I don’t know if it was the next step, but certainly an important step was seeking assistance. And I think certainly Marc Burnett, you know I mentioned him, he was one that if I recall when we took the idea, that he was able to help us to map out you know how to do this. You know, James talked about that there was a mini racial reckoning that was happening during that time, and so you know we just thought that we’d tell the world that Tech won’t play ball with us and they’ll give us money. Well, that didn’t happen. So, we didn’t take that route. We actually talked with him and he said “ok, how do we do this.” And I believe he was—he and us collectively talked about how we—you know, we actually wrote a letter, we each three of us wrote a letter to Dr. Volpe about you know what we thought was something that was needed on campus. And we laid out what the benefits would be for that. And then if I recall, he was the one who helped set up the initial meeting with Dr. Volpe to follow up that letter. And so, Marc played an integral part in helping us to understand that there is a— there are lots of ways to get stuff done, and I think for that, that situation this was the way that we chose to move forward to get it done. James: Yeah, one thing I would say is that it was—this is kind of what comes when you have friendships that each of us can contribute a different part. So, often times when we would get together—when I say “we,” I’m talking about James and �Transcript of Running through Time - 4 00:10:00 Richard and others—we would be in dorm rooms over the weekend. And sometimes—again, I’m just being straight—we would be complaining about something not being there for us or that it was boring or something. And so, so that helped give us the impetus. So, to your question Corey, I think James often had the vision. To Richard’s credit, he had a lot of the organizational aspects of thinking about, “Ok, if we’re going to do this we need to make sure we write letters.” And I also think it helped that in some ways we were all—I’m going to use the word active, it may not have felt like we were active, but we were all in different organizations. So, Richard was doing a lot with the BSO and NSBE. I was doing a lot with NSBE. James was doing a lot with NSBE. We were all in different organizations. So the other piece to kind of helping make it happen was that it wasn’t just the three of us. Because eventually we started talking to our different organizations—the students—and saying “hey, we wanna do this.” You know, we’ve gone to other places—Vanderbilt University—there’s this awakening that’s resonate in James Harris from Atlanta. Just the fact that at times we would go to NSBE conferences and see just how much they were underrepresenting. We can do this, it would be good for Tennessee Tech, it would be good for the students, and you know we’re just tired of not being represented. And getting other students on board, and letting the administration know that it wasn’t just us—it was a student led, group organization—that helped a lot. The sponsorship from Marc Burnett was critical. And then even writing letters to Dr. Volpe. And at times, you know meeting directly with Dr. Volpe and expressing you know here’s how it feels like for us in our situation as students. Here’s why we want it. And it wasn’t just about money. It was about how this could be a better student experience, and hopefully not just for us but moving forward. And I think that helped. Frankly, it helped to develop relationships with Dr. Volpe and others that I probably never would have—I mean I didn’t intend to say, “Oh, I’m going to try to develop a relationship with the president of the university.” But, perhaps in things that I’ll share later, it really helped to have that interaction even though it was somewhat—I’m not going to say contentious. We were pushing for changing the norm and helping to represent the students. That was all part of the context. So, that’s some of the context I would put it in. Harris: Yeah, yeah, I’ll add a little more texture to that. I mean—we have to give credit to Dr. Leo McGee who behind the scenes would come and encourage us and say, “just keep pushing.” Pat Lenzo who was a counselor, was my hero. Feed me when I couldn’t get lunch money. I mean, they were all encouraging. Dr. Carl Owens who was in the Education department, behind the scenes was like “let me know what you need.” So there were a lot of people—Dr. Philip Campana gave us space in the Foreign Language Center. All those people were supporting what we were doing. I will say—this may not be politically correct or what I call country polite, but you know we had presented this to Hoyle Lawson as well. And he just, he wasn’t having it. It wasn’t something that was going to be done at Tennessee Tech. This is my personal opinion—I’m sure he’s a nice guy—I think he thought that there was a structure and a order of students at Tennessee Tech and that what we were asking for unreasonable. Which I thought was personally ridiculous. �Transcript of Running through Time - 5 Richard, John, tell me if I’m wrong, but I thought Dr. Volpe had been in office maybe a week and we were called into Dr. Volpe’s office. James: Yep, that was right on. Harris: And we walked into the President’s Office saying “we’re going home.” And I think the funny part was, we were debating how we were going home. “Well, I’m going to pack my bag and I’m going to—you know, Richard I could ride with you.” Just all these things. And I will never forget we walked into Dr. Volpe’s office and he said “You’re not going home and there will be a Black Culture Center. Done.” And we were like, oh, ok. And he told us a story that has always been with me. He said, “you know, when people see you all walking across campus, they know you’re Black.” Now, another little side story: we were all dressed in like African pants, African print pants—at least I was, you know. We had little dashikis on. It was Black Power time. T-shirts that said “Proud Black Man, Proud Black Woman.” So when he said that, I thought he meant that because of our clothing they could tell we were Black, right. But what he finished saying was, “however, when they see me walking across campus, they don’t know I’m Italian until they hear my last name.” So he told us a story of his father in the Great Depression needing to feed his family, and he would walk up and stay in line for hours to get to the window. And it says “No Blacks, ’spics,” or whatever allowed. Or Irishmen allowed, or something like that. And his father would have to come home to the kids and say I don’t have any food for you. He said, “so I know what it’s like to be discriminated against. I have the advantage of they can’t tell who I am until I open my mouth and they hear my last name. So there will be a Black Culture Center. I’ll deal with all of this. Y’all go back to your dorms and do what you need to do.” And we walked out of the room. And there was a Black Culture Center. Fuqua: That’s great. Harris: So, I think it is—you know, it may not be politically correct, but there are people, advocates, champions, who whether public or private make things happen. I think that’s the lesson that I learned. Fuqua: Yeah. 00:15:00 Harris: Also, I think it’s interesting that he had resolve. It wasn’t like “I’ve been here a week and I think I can make it happen.” He said “Oh, it’s gonna happen.” And it did. And so for those reasons, you have to—as students who are listening— look for those champions. Look for those people who have courage and resolve. Partner with them. And make things happen. End of transcript. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Office of Multicultural Affairs records Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1990s 2000s 2010s Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tennessee Technological University. Office of Multicultural Affairs Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Transcript of clip from Celebrating a Legacy – Virtual Discussion and Q&A with the Founders of the Leona Lusk Officer Black Cultural Center Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McCallon, Hannah O'Daniel Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2020-11-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright held by Tennessee Technological University. This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for educational uses. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/ Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MC_20201113_cliptranscript Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2020s Description An account of the resource Transcript of a clip from the Celebrating a Legacy Zoom panel discussion on November 12, 2020. Richard Fuqua, John James, and James Harris describe their motivations to create a Black Cultural Center at Tennessee Tech and how they worked to implement their idea. Corey Prince moderates the discussion.<br /><br />The video recording is available here: <a href="https://tntecharchives.omeka.net/items/show/257" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://tntecharchives.omeka.net/items/show/257</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The full video recording is available here: <a href="https://tntech.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_0f40f0e0-069a-44ed-ab38-e7f7935d3622/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://tntech.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_0f40f0e0-069a-44ed-ab38-e7f7935d3622/</a>