First Year on Campus

Eric Moore discusses life in the dorms during his first year at NC State.

Interview on 2012-05-17 00:00:00 -0400

Transcript

00:00:00.000 When we lived in Sullivan
00:00:01.860 soon after I arrived
00:00:05.542 there was a sign placed on Jim Stewart and my door,
00:00:11.149 and interestingly enough I think-and this was partly planned-
00:00:14.926 we lived in a suite and so of course there were four rooms in the suite and you'd share the bathroom,
00:00:19.531 and two of the guys in the suite were also from Durham
00:00:23.321 so we had that regional connection and then the other guys in the suite tended to not interact very much.
00:00:31.932 But we came back and there was a sign: "SPONGE is out to get you."
00:00:36.813 So of course, you know, we were new to the campus
00:00:40.359 and we had made connections with older African American students
00:00:44.001 so we went over and said can you guys help us out with this?
00:00:47.413 So they smiled and said, oh yes, "SPONGE" stands for
00:00:50.069 the "society for the prevention of n-word getting everything," s-p-o-n-g-e.
00:00:58.249 So they laughed and said, yeah, you know, it's just somebody trying to scare you,
00:01:02.974 but we've never seen them yet in the years that we've been here, so we said, okay, fine,
00:01:06.965 but at least they knew that some darkies were now in this particular room.
00:01:11.660 Then quite frankly whenever you walked out of the elevator
00:01:16.582 to go to class you would look up,
00:01:18.676 because back then water balloons were known to come straight down off of the balcony
00:01:25.960 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.
00:01:31.070 So that was standard morning behavior whenever you came out,
00:01:34.443 and then you'd walk by Bragaw Hall and you'd hear words reflecting a lack of respect coming your way,
00:01:40.933 but again you don't know who it is,
00:01:42.997 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
00:01:48.914 to get our degree and move on.