Excerpt Transcript: “No, very much so, and we were always reminding ourselves that we were not new to this, that there was a long history of this conversation about the Black Cultural Center in particular but in fights for justice generally. And we very much talked about ourselves and saw ourselves in that historical context, just even going back to the integration of the University itself. Like I mentioned at the very beginning, my father couldn’t go to UNC, so my presence even here was a big deal, personally and for my family. We definitely, I think, all were aware that we were not the first. We certainly would not be the last, and we were playing a role in a particular moment in time. Then, we felt a responsibility because those before us had gotten the conversation to a certain point that we were building on that. We were also quite clear that we probably would not finish the fight, that, again, we had a particular moment, that things sort of coalesced and crescendoed while we were here.”
Excerpt Description: Carol McDonald explains how members of the BCC movement placed themselves within the legacy of the long civil rights movement.
Interviewee Name: Carol McDonald
Interviewer: Charlotte Fryar
Excerpt Transcript: “No, very much so, and we were always reminding ourselves that we were not new to this, that there was a long history of this conversation about the Black Cultural Center in particular but in fights for justice generally. And we very much talked about ourselves and saw ourselves in that historical context, just even going back to the integration of the University itself. Like I mentioned at the very beginning, my father couldn’t go to UNC, so my presence even here was a big deal, personally and for my family. We definitely, I think, all were aware that we were not the first. We certainly would not be the last, and we were playing a role in a particular moment in time. Then, we felt a responsibility because those before us had gotten the conversation to a certain point that we were building on that. We were also quite clear that we probably would not finish the fight, that, again, we had a particular moment, that things sort of coalesced and crescendoed while we were here.”
Organization: Black Student Movement, BCC Movement
Excerpt Length: 1:22
Interview Date: 3/31/2017
Interview Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Campus Space: The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History
Citation: Interview with Carol McDonald by Charlotte Fryar, 31 March 2017, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.