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NCCU celebrates centennial June 30
http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1173318.cfm

By Neil Offen : The Herald-Sun
noffen@heraldsun.com

Jun 22, 2009
http://www.nccu.edu

DURHAM -- They will ring the bell and they will sign the document, impersonating the men who did it for real 100 years ago.

N.C. Central University will begin the celebration of its centennial with a free, public event June 30 that will recall the granting of its charter as the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua For the Colored Race on that date in 1909.

The bell that will be rung to begin the ceremony is almost as old as the school.

"Oh, my goodness, it's been here a long time," said Bill Evans, the co-chairman of the university's centennial planning committee. "No one's really sure hold old it is, but it was here when I came here in 1959 and it was here long before then. It is close to 100 years old."

The bell, located near the Edmonds Classroom Building, had been used for a long time to signal the start and end of classes on the campus. Then it was used as a victory bell, to signal significant accomplishments on the football field.

But it hasn't been used in a good while, Evans said, and will need some refurbishing before it takes center stage June 30.

"We'll have to get it in shape to ring on the 30th," Evans said. "But I'm sure we'll be able to do that in time."

After the bell is rung -- at 9:30 a.m. -- there will be a procession to the B.N. Duke Auditorium, where proclamations from various governments will be read and the signing of the school's charter will be re-enacted -- a ceremony including some of the descendants of the original signers.

James E. Shepard, a minister and a teacher, the school's founder and its first president, organized the charter signing for this new institute of learning. Among the signers were some of his most prominent supporters: his brother, Charles Shepard, a physician; another physician, Aaron Moore; W.G. Pearson, principal at nearby Hillside Park High School; C.C. Spaulding, the general manager and secretary of North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association; and John Merritt, president of N.C. Mutual.

The re-enactors on June 30 won't be dressed up as their forebears.

"We thought of that," Evans said with a laugh. "We decided against it, but at some point during the coming year, there is going to be a full dramatic production dealing with the history of this institution, and everyone will be in costume."

The production will be one of a series of events marking the university's founding that will include centennial-themed Founders Day and commencement ceremonies as well as a planned academic symposium examining the future of historically black colleges and universities. The university is also planning to develop commemorative print materials and artwork celebrating the history of NCCU in words and pictures, including a giant quilt depicting each decade of the university's life span.

Since the school didn't officially open its doors to around 130 students until July 10, 1910, the centennial celebration will last until July 10, 2010.

"But we wanted to do something now, on the charter date," said Evans. "We thought it was really important to do that."

At NCCU, 'a remarkable day' re-enacted
http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1176776.cfm

By Neil Offen : The Herald-Sun
noffen@heraldsun.com

July 1, 2009
http://www.nccu.edu

The Herald-Sun/Christine T. Nguyen Eugene Turner (front) re-enacts the signing of charter on Tuesday for the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race, which later became N.C. Central Univeristy. Seven descendents and others representing the original six signatories, including Chuck Watts (back left) and Samuel A. Shepard (back right) re-enacted the signing of the charter.

DURHAM -- The seven men in dark suits mounted the stairs to the stage of the B.N. Duke Auditorium, hunched over the small wooden table, and signed their names.

They had come to honor what their ancestors had done a hundred years earlier, signing a charter that created the school that became N.C. Central University.

The re-enactment of the chartering of the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua For the Colored Race was the focal point Tuesday of NCCU's first event in a year-long celebration of its centennial. It was a moment for bell-ringing, a stirring rendition of the school's alma mater and repeated references to the historic nature of what happened on June 30, 1909.

"This is a remarkable day in the history of our university," NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms told the packed audience in the auditorium. "Too little has been said of the extraordinary courage it took to engage in the act of defiance" that led to the founding of the school.

Nelms recalled that founder James Shepard and the other men who signed the charter -- local businessmen Charles Spaulding and John Merrick, educator William G. Pearson and physicians Aaron Moore and Shepard's father, Charles Shepard -- took the step in an era of vicious Jim Crow segregation.

And "in no other realm of life was [segregation] more pernicious than in education," Nelms said, referencing the slew of lynchings and torture of blacks that plagued the South.

While "most black people were desperately poor and illiterate," Nelms said, Shepard offered hope "there could be another way of life."

The charter signers, he added, "knew then what we all know now -- that education is the road to a better way of life."

Erskine Bowles, the president of the University of North Carolina system, of which N.C. Central became a member in 1972, echoed the chancellor's remarks, saying that Nelms himself has the same kind of vision and courage shown by Shepard.

"We have a university that we can all be proud of," Bowles said. But "I think our future is ahead of us, our trajectory straight up."

NCCU, he added, continues to grow, and "indeed, I would say it's critically important to growing the economy of North Carolina."

The ceremony, which drew hundreds of school alumni, featured proclamations read by Bill Bell, the mayor of Durham, and Michael Page, chairman of the Durham Board of County Commissioners, who both declared Tuesday "North Carolina Central University Charter Day."

The biggest audience reaction, however, was for NCCU alumnus Dudley Flood, a former associate state superintendent of schools, who regaled the crowd with a series of funny -- if pointed -- stories.

Flood concluded his remarks with the story of a circus high-wire performer walker who had just walked with a wheelbarrow across a wire suspended over Niagara Falls. A circus entrepreneur was trying to convince him to do it again.

The high-wire artist said if the entrepreneur was so convinced the performer could make it, then he should "get in the wheelbarrow."

"If this university is to survive, rather than turn on each other," Flood said, "we have to turn toward each other. We all have to get in the wheelbarrow."

Published: Jul 01, 2009 02:00 AM Modified: Jul 01, 2009 05:24 AM
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1590288.html

People whose ancestors or namesakes signed the 1909 charter for the school now called NCCU re-enact the ceremony. From left, Isaac H. Green Sr., Joseph M. Sansom, Clinton A. Shearin Sr., Aaron L. Spaulding, Chuck Watts and Samual A. Shepard Jr. watch as Eugene Turner adds his signature. Staff photo by Harry Lynch

Timothy McIntosh, NCCU class of 1962, reprises his role as campus bell-ringer for Charter Day. Photo for The N&O by Robert Lawson

Peals of joy mark NCCU's 100th year

The bell takes center stage as the university's alumni, students and faculty celebrate Charter Day.
http://www.nccu.edu

BY ERIC FERRERI, Staff Writer

DURHAM - As an undergraduate at N.C. Central University half a century ago, Timothy McIntosh had an entire campus counting on him.

McIntosh was the campus bell-ringer. Five times a day, seven days a week, for four years, McIntosh would pull the rope on the old bell that stands in the center of campus, signaling to students that it was time to wake, eat or go to class.

For that, he earned $60 a month.

"It was a good job; it got me through college," McIntosh said Tuesday. "That was my main source of income."

McIntosh came to NCCU from Wilson, where he grew up. He studied mathematics and went on to a career doing civilian financial work for the Army.

Now 69, retired and living in Maryland, McIntosh was among scores of proud NCCU alumni who returned to campus this week to commemorate their alma mater's Charter Day, the 100th anniversary of its incorporation.

McIntosh kicked off the event -- and a year of planned activities celebrating NCCU's centennial -- with one more ring of the bell.

"At six in the morning, he was none too popular with the folks in the residence halls nearest the bell," quipped NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who presided Tuesday and spoke at length of the importance that bell played in the life of the campus.

NCCU founder James Shepard had a particular fondness for the bell, old-timers recounted Tuesday. He disliked tardiness and wanted everyone in class on time.

"The community depended on this bell for the correct time; they set their watches by it," said alumnus Robert Lawson, the longtime university photographer. "If we won a game, they'd ring it, too. You knew if we lost a football game because the bell didn't sound."

The event Tuesday also included speeches and proclamations from local dignitaries as well as a re-enactment of the signing of the charter. The role-playing was done by descendants of many of the original signers.

In its century of life, NCCU has had a few name changes and a couple of different missions. It was conceived by Shepard and a small group of Durham businessmen who wanted a religious school for blacks. So at its founding, the institution was called the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race.

The school relied on donations, which waned when World War I arrived. It couldn't pay its bills and was eventually turned over to the state, which in 1923 turned it into a teacher training school for blacks. Shepard became its principal.

But two years later, Shepard lobbied and received state money to turn it into a liberal arts college, and it became the North Carolina College for Negroes, the nation's first liberal arts college for blacks.

Dudley Flood, an alumnus, career educator and member of the UNC system's Board of Governors, recalled that along with the academic education he received while a student at NCCU, he learned some lessons about life -- how to speak, dress and carry himself properly.

"We didn't have a written dress code, ... but if you didn't have a coat and a necktie [during meals], you didn't eat. We were taught decorum," he told a rapt audience at B.N. Duke Auditorium. "I will tell you right now, it matters how you present yourself."

NCCU has centennial events planned throughout the next year, culminating in the spring with an academic symposium examining the future of historically black colleges and universities. With state budget cuts looming, university administrators and alumni association officials plan to lean heavily on private donors to raise money for centennial events.

eric.ferreri@newsobserver.com or 919-932-2008
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ABOUT NCCU

N.C. Central University is one of 10 historically black universities in North Carolina and one of five within the state's public university system. It has eight schools and colleges and about 8,000 students.