Excerpt Description: Tim Minor describes how the role of the Black Cultural Center/Stone Center has changed for Black students over time, explaining that current student can adapt the space to meet their needs.
Excerpt Transcript: “You talk about first generation students or the students who are the minority on a campus and having a need for a place where they can feel safe or they can feel safe to say things and do things. So you think about the Fishbowl. You think about the–when it was in that 800 square foot room and–but it was in the student union. And so it was accessible and you could go there after hanging on the wall in front of the undergrad [library] or before you go in for an exam or if you feel encircled by whatever. I think physically being by the Bell Tower, it makes it harder for people to get to and that it makes it a little more difficult to be that. But I think as far as safe space, and opportunity to mentor or either talk to students which a lot of times the Stone Center director would do, Margo [Crawford] would do and other folks would do. Joseph does in a sense. I think you still have that, it’s just you have to walk across the street. You have to walk to the–and so I don’t know if students, if that resonates with students now where how you can. I remember at one point one of the designs for the basement was to make it a theater or I think Phil Freelon was going to donate his designs to get that constructed as a way for students to come and feel that they could have that safe space. But I don’t know–I’m not sure how–and I’m probably too far removed now to understand what the needs of the students are even today. If you can capture that again because I think it was so unique at that time.”
Excerpt Description: Tim Minor describes how the role of the Black Cultural Center/Stone Center has changed for Black students over time, explaining that current student can adapt the space to meet their needs.
Interviewee Name: Tim Minor
Interviewer: Charlotte Fryar
Excerpt Transcript: “You talk about first generation students or the students who are the minority on a campus and having a need for a place where they can feel safe or they can feel safe to say things and do things. So you think about the Fishbowl. You think about the–when it was in that 800 square foot room and–but it was in the student union. And so it was accessible and you could go there after hanging on the wall in front of the undergrad [library] or before you go in for an exam or if you feel encircled by whatever. I think physically being by the Bell Tower, it makes it harder for people to get to and that it makes it a little more difficult to be that. But I think as far as safe space, and opportunity to mentor or either talk to students which a lot of times the Stone Center director would do, Margo [Crawford] would do and other folks would do. Joseph does in a sense. I think you still have that, it’s just you have to walk across the street. You have to walk to the–and so I don’t know if students, if that resonates with students now where how you can. I remember at one point one of the designs for the basement was to make it a theater or I think Phil Freelon was going to donate his designs to get that constructed as a way for students to come and feel that they could have that safe space. But I don’t know–I’m not sure how–and I’m probably too far removed now to understand what the needs of the students are even today. If you can capture that again because I think it was so unique at that time.”
Organization: Black Student Movement, BCC Movement, Sonja Haynes Stone Center Advisory Board
Excerpt Length: 2:20
Interview Date: 3/7/2017
Interview Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Campus Space: The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History
Citation: Interview with Tim Minor by Charlotte Fryar, 7 March 2017, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.