When we lived in Sullivan
soon after I arrived
there was a sign placed on Jim Stewart and my door,
and interestingly enough I think-and this was partly planned-
we lived in a suite and so of course there were four rooms in the suite and you'd share the bathroom,
and two of the guys in the suite were also from Durham
so we had that regional connection and then the other guys in the suite tended to not interact very much.
But we came back and there was a sign: "SPONGE is out to get you."
So of course, you know, we were new to the campus
and we had made connections with older African American students
so we went over and said can you guys help us out with this?
So they smiled and said, oh yes, "SPONGE" stands for
the "society for the prevention of n-word getting everything," s-p-o-n-g-e.
So they laughed and said, yeah, you know, it's just somebody trying to scare you,
but we've never seen them yet in the years that we've been here, so we said, okay, fine,
but at least they knew that some darkies were now in this particular room.
Then quite frankly whenever you walked out of the elevator
to go to class you would look up,
because back then water balloons were known to come straight down off of the balcony
and of course you'd look up there and you'd have no idea except that this water balloon is coming, so get out the way.
So that was standard morning behavior whenever you came out,
and then you'd walk by Bragaw Hall and you'd hear words reflecting a lack of respect coming your way,
but again you don't know who it is,
so you tended to toughen up and realize, okay, yeah; it's going to be like that but we're going to continue to do whatever we have to do
to get our degree and move on.