On Saturday, the North Carolina football team will travel to Greensboro to face Clemson in pursuit of their sixth conference title.
While many don’t associate the Tar Heels with football considering their illustrious history on the hardwood, one former player is keeping a close watch on both the team and coach Mack Brown.
John Bradley, a UNC linebacker from 1991-1994, played under Coach Brown and is looking forward to seeing the program’s continued progress.
“It feels great seeing the Tarheel football program have so much success,” he said. “The ACC has historically been viewed as a basketball school. UNC has put a lot of investment and energy into building state-of-the-art athletic facilities, programming and hiring very talented coaches and support staff. Several of the staff were players during my time at UNC and their efforts during the offseason and recruiting is paying off. I’m excited about the ACC title game and know that Coach Brown will have the team prepared for this big stage.”
While Bradley didn’t win any bowl games during his tenure, he and teammates Malcolm Marshall, Jimmy Hancock, and Timothy Smith left an indelible mark on the campus through their participation in a local student protest that garnered national attention.
A movement that is, unfortunately, largely unknown and/or forgotten.
The year was 1992, Bradley’s sophomore year and a year that marked a turning point in American politics and culture.
That year’s presidential election saw younger voters, later referred to as Generation X, become a critical voting bloc.
The smell of teen spirit filled the airwaves and the hardcore sounds of artists like Ice Cube, Ice T, and Public Enemy opened mainstream America’s eyes to untreated racial inequities that would be magnified by that summer’s rebellion in Los Angeles after four white police officers were acquitted in beating Rodney King.
It was a year that turned the world on its head.
Chapel Hill and the Turmoil Of 1992
In the midst of this turmoil was a growing student movement on the campus of Chapel Hill that perfectly fit the sensibilities of the time.
Black students organized and advocated for the construction of a free-standing Black cultural center on campus that would provide students with a space to appreciate and learn about black history and culture. It was to be named in honor of famed Black studies scholar Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone, the director of the Afro-American studies program at UNC from 1974-1979.
From the beginning, tension existed between the students and the administration, led by Chancellor Paul Hardin III.
Students wanted a free-standing cultural center that operated on its own rules and regulations. The administration, with certain exceptions, supported the construction of the center but wanted it to be confined next to the snack area in the Student Union.
But after university trustee member John Pope was quoted saying “it seems to me if (black students) are interested in a Black Cultural Center, maybe those students should attend a black university,” things escalated.
Pope’s racist comment ignited the movement and helped attract numbers of student activists not seen since the Vietnam War.
From that point on, the invigorated students were relentless in pursuit of their mission. They issued three specific demands to Chancellor Hardin which included the aforementioned cultural center, higher wages for UNC’s housekeepers, and an endowed professorship named after Dr. Haynes Stone, who passed away in 1991.
Chancellor Hardin rejected all three demands and expressed concern that a free-standing cultural center would promote “segregation” and “separatism”.
With the movement at a critical moment, Bradley, Marshall, Hancock, and Smith entered the picture.
The four Tar Heel football players, with the support of Coach Brown, formed the Black Awareness Council (BAC) to help increase black athlete activism. It was a far cry from the larger ethos of the time in which athletes were situated as commercial commodities, not political spokespeople.
The sentiment was largely expressed by the most famous Tar Heel, Michael Jordan, who famously said “Republicans Buy Sneakers Too”.
The group’s coming out party came during a rally of 300 students outside Chancellor Hardin’s home on September 3. The peaceful protest was accompanied by chants of “Black Power” and the presentation of a letter to Hardin demanding the approval of the construction of the center by November 13 with a recommended location.
Student leader Margo Crawford later credited the player’s participation as helping to garner more attention to the movement.
National attention followed through the work of powerful Black voices.
Legendary New York Times sports writer William Rhoden highlighted the work of these athletes through a September 18th column. On that same day, filmmaker Spike Lee, a distant cousin of Dr. Haynes, arrived at a rally at the Dean Smith Center.
Before a crowd of 7,000, Lee told the crowd that he got involved after hearing “the fact that this movement is led by athletes”. During his ten minute lecture, he stressed the importance of athletes getting involved in social issues.
Lee was promoting his landmark movie Malcolm X at the time. It was released that November, a fitting cultural touchstone that coincided with the activity at UNC.
When asked whether he thought the attention drawn to the movement would be enormous, Bradley said he was surprised at the magnitude of it all.
“I thought we would garner some attention when we initially became involved with the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture & History,” said Bradley. “But I didn’t imagine how fast and the scale of the attention that it garnered. I also didn’t anticipate how it would bridge into other conversations like collegiate athlete pay and the power that athletes have in the NCAA. Generating attention was one of the main drivers for getting involved. We knew if we generated attention on the issue it would have to be addressed and not just pushed aside.”
After intense negotiations, a 13-person panel was established to decide upon the future of the black cultural center. Among the panelists were Michael Jordan’s mother Delores Jordan and Harvey Gantt, the first black mayor of Charlotte. The lack of student leaders further increased the skepticism and anger of students.
Yet on October 5, the panel voted 10-2 in favor of the construction of a free-standing cultural center and eventually Chancellor Hardin relented.
In April 2001, the groundbreaking of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History occurred. Three years later in August 2004, the center officially opened.
Reflections 30 Years Later
Bradley graduated from UNC with a degree in African American Studies and received an MBA from Charleston Southern University. He is a father of two children and an entrepreneur helping working people maximize their physical, mental, and business health through customized coaching/mentoring.
When reflecting, Bradley said what he learned from that period helped him in life.
“Leadership on the field is very similar to leadership on campus, community organizations and in a corporate environment,” he said. “Building and leading teams is tough but worth it. Change does not happen without action and that action may be uncomfortable sometimes. Never be afraid to speak up on things you are passionate about. But also be willing to listen, learn and negotiate.”
He credited those lessons to Coach Brown.
“Coach Brown has always been great at building a consensus in vision and execution,” he said. “I learned from Coach Brown how to build a great leadership team around you and then allow them to be great with their individual talents. He fought for us as players and that motivated the success that we had on the field and on campus. I’m excited to see them take the big stage at the ACC Championship and a bowl game to round out a stellar season.”
History has a way of telling some stories and concealing others.
But in this era of racial reckoning and the concerted attempts to water down historical teaching, the story of the 1992 UNC football team reminds us of the power a few can have to effect change.
A power worth expressing in more ways than one.
