Nubian Message
The Nubian Message is North Carolina State University's African American student newspaper. The Nubian Message was first published in 1992 following protests from many African American students denouncing the Technician's alleged racial bias. The Nubian Message is currently published each Wednesday during the school year.
Formation
The events surrounding the formation of the Nubian Message are something that students on campus at the time, whether black or white, remember vividly. Early in the school year at both NCSU and UNC-Chapel Hill, African-American students protested and lobbied for Administration at both institutions to build ‘free-standing’ cultural centers that could expand knowledge and understanding of African American culture.
The Black Awareness Council, a student group at UNC, led the charge in Chapel Hill, calling for a permanent stand alone building that could be used for the study of African-American culture. Students at NCSU did the same, claiming that administration in Raleigh had promised the building of a cultural center in 1987, a fact which campus officials never disputed.
With these calls for cultural awareness as the backdrop, the actual event that set in motion the formation of the Nubian Message came on Sept. 23, 1992 when the Technician ran a controversial column by Steve Crisp. In his column, Crisp called the activists at UNC racist and bashed the rally which had taken place in Chapel Hill. The response to this statement by black students in Raleigh was nothing less remarkable.
The next day, Sept. 24, some 200 students rallied in the Brickyard to protest Crisp’s column, even burning copies of the Technician. Greg Washington, a leader of the Brickyard protest in 1992, summed up his feelings about what should happen within Student Media with a fairly simple phrase.
“We need a black paper on this campus that will give coverage to a black perspective,” he said.
Realization
On November 30, 1992, that “black perspective” was formed and the dreams of black students were realized with the paper's first issue. In that first edition, the editor-in-chief, Tony Williamson, said the formation of the paper had been something long overdue at the university and also spoke about the goals of the newspaper.
“The Nubian Message should and will be the voice for African-Americans at N.C. State”, he wrote. “It will be a publication in which people can learn about different aspects of our culture, as well as find out useful information about campus.”[1]
