Clipping from an interview with Damon Prince on meeting friends through the Black Cultural Center
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Clipping from an interview with Damon Prince on meeting friends through the Black Cultural Center
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Description
Clip of an interview of Damon Prince conducted by Joshua Egwuatu on January 12, 2021. "D" Prince started at Tennessee Tech in 1992. He describes how he met Black students from similar backgrounds as him through the Black Cultural Center, which he had not done before growing up in a military family.
Transcript:
Damon Prince: When I first got here Tech used to do the mixer. I think they do the Dancing on Dixie now and a big party outside. Well, for minorities, we used to just have like a mixer in the BCC. It was like you know cucumber sandwiches with the crust cut off, pineapples and strawberries on a toothpick, and some punch. And you know, I, I wanted to be plugged in. I didn't know how it was gonna happen but I knew that somehow some way I needed to meet some people. I didn't, I didn't, I never had a problem meeting people that were a different race. I think where my biggest issue was is getting along with people that look like me. We always lived—because my father was in the military, we always lived like in the, in the officers neighborhoods because my dad was like an executive assistant pretty much, and, but, he, he wasn't an officer. And so we lived around a lot of white people. We didn't really live around Black folks. And so, I, that was the biggest challenge for me was to try to find people that looked like me that I could get along with. And I did that when I went to the BCC. There were, you know, kids from different areas that had, that were just like me. You know, some of my friends that I mentioned, that I mentioned already. My, my friend Mike Collins, my friend Dave Corte, you know. We were all athletes but you know we were the guys in school who, just those two in particular I’m thinking of, when I was in high school a lot of the kids that I hung out with, a lot of kids that I knew didn't have two parents in the same household. They had mom or they had grandma that they were raised by. I had both my parents. Mike had both his parents. Dave had both his parents. So, we kind of knew what that was like, you know. When I had guys that I hung out with that was just like, you know, I’m like “yo, man what's wrong with you?” “Oh, man you know my dad came around after like six years” and I’m just kind of like “I don't know what that's like, so you know you got to hit me up to that.” And, and that was good you know getting those experiences, but I was around people that were just like me. You know, look like me. We dressed the same. We had both parents. We had siblings that got on our nerves. And you know it was just refreshing. And I got all I got all that through the BCC.
Transcript:
Damon Prince: When I first got here Tech used to do the mixer. I think they do the Dancing on Dixie now and a big party outside. Well, for minorities, we used to just have like a mixer in the BCC. It was like you know cucumber sandwiches with the crust cut off, pineapples and strawberries on a toothpick, and some punch. And you know, I, I wanted to be plugged in. I didn't know how it was gonna happen but I knew that somehow some way I needed to meet some people. I didn't, I didn't, I never had a problem meeting people that were a different race. I think where my biggest issue was is getting along with people that look like me. We always lived—because my father was in the military, we always lived like in the, in the officers neighborhoods because my dad was like an executive assistant pretty much, and, but, he, he wasn't an officer. And so we lived around a lot of white people. We didn't really live around Black folks. And so, I, that was the biggest challenge for me was to try to find people that looked like me that I could get along with. And I did that when I went to the BCC. There were, you know, kids from different areas that had, that were just like me. You know, some of my friends that I mentioned, that I mentioned already. My, my friend Mike Collins, my friend Dave Corte, you know. We were all athletes but you know we were the guys in school who, just those two in particular I’m thinking of, when I was in high school a lot of the kids that I hung out with, a lot of kids that I knew didn't have two parents in the same household. They had mom or they had grandma that they were raised by. I had both my parents. Mike had both his parents. Dave had both his parents. So, we kind of knew what that was like, you know. When I had guys that I hung out with that was just like, you know, I’m like “yo, man what's wrong with you?” “Oh, man you know my dad came around after like six years” and I’m just kind of like “I don't know what that's like, so you know you got to hit me up to that.” And, and that was good you know getting those experiences, but I was around people that were just like me. You know, look like me. We dressed the same. We had both parents. We had siblings that got on our nerves. And you know it was just refreshing. And I got all I got all that through the BCC.
Source
Black Cultural Center Oral History Collection
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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/
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Identifier
BCCOH_Prince_20210112_BCCclip1
Citation
Prince, Damon, “Clipping from an interview with Damon Prince on meeting friends through the Black Cultural Center,” Tennessee Tech University Archives and Special Collections, accessed May 16, 2024, https://tntecharchives.omeka.net/items/show/387.
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