New Collection Guide for the African American Cultural Center Records

This post contributed by Margot Cook.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce that an updated collection guide for the North Carolina State University, Office of the Provost, African American Cultural Center Records is now available. The collection includes materials related to the Cultural Center’s activities from 1984 to the present. This includes agendas, flyers, and the meeting agendas pertaining to the African American Heritage Society, which was once an important club operating under the African American Cultural Center. It also includes advisory committee minutes, correspondence, agendas, and publicity materials related to the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Festival, an annual event put on by the Cultural Center. Finally, it includes correspondence and planning materials related to the Cultural Center’s move into the Student Center Annex, now known as the Witherspoon Student Center.

The African American Cultural Center was first established in 1970 and ran out of the basement of the King Religious Center (also known as the YMCA building), colloquially known as “The Ghetto.” It continued to run out of The Ghetto until 1974, when it moved to the basement of the former Print Shop (now the West Dunn Building). The basement of the Print Shop proved to be an inadequate facility for the club and, after calls to renovate the space, it was eventually decided in 1987 that the Cultural Center should be uprooted once again, this time into the future Student Center Annex. Correspondence detailing this decision, as well as the documents related to the planning of the Student Center Annex, can be found in this collection. The Student Center Annex, now the Witherspoon Student Center, opened in 1991 and has been the home of the African American Cultural Center ever since. Today, the Center continues to strive to “promote awareness of and appreciation for African American and other African descent experiences through activities and events that enhance academic excellence and strengthen cultural competence for the campus and surrounding communities.” For more information on the history of the African American Cultural Center, see this previous blog post on the Center’s fiftieth anniversary.

A highlight of this collection is material related to the annual activities that the Cultural Center sponsored. These materials, which range from correspondence and planning to promotional flyers and newspaper articles, highlight the experiences of African Americans on NC State’s campus, as well as the various issues and events that they were engaging with and thinking about. For example, each year the Cultural Center sponsored African American Heritage Day in the fall and the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Festival in January, which hosted both NC State students and the local African American community at large to discuss and engage in activities related to annual themes ranging from “We Shall Not be Moved,” to “Igniting the Spirit of a New Generation.” Additionally, the African American Cultural Center, through Heritage Day, the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Festival, as well as an annual lecture series with the Heritage Society, hosted a variety of notable speakers. The themes, speakers, and types of activities the African American Cultural Center chose to highlight in their annual events speaks to the issues they felt were most prevalent at the time or the successes they found most worthy of celebration. Cumulatively, these materials are important indicators of the African American experience at NC State and even on a broader, national scale.

If you are interested in viewing the materials in this collection, you can access them by scheduling an appointment with the Special Collections Research Center. The Special Collections Research Center is open by appointment only. Appointments are available Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm and Saturday, 1pm–5pm. Requests for a Saturday appointment must be received no later than Tuesday of the same week. If you have any questions or are interested in viewing Special Collections materials, please contact us at library_specialcollections@ncsu.edu or submit a request online.