Technician has been running for nearly 100 years, with the first issue published on Feb. 1, 1920. Throughout the years, NC State has seen many different events, from great successes to terrible tragedies and everything in-between. Time, and language itself, has changed over the years, but for almost every major event, Technician was there.

To celebrate Black History Month, we’re taking a look at how Technician has covered the month and black culture in the past. According to the NC State Libraries’ African American History at NC State Timeline, African-Americans were not allowed into NC State’s graduate programs until 1951. Two years later, two black students, Robert Clemons and Hardy Liston, were admitted into the School of Engineering. Three years after that, in September of 1956, NC State’s undergraduate programs were opened up, with four students admitted that year.

Needless to say, black students were not covered in the school’s paper for many years, let alone Black History Month. However, by 1986, Technician was publishing the first of three specialty issues, celebrating Black History Month. The first of these issues ran on Feb. 26, 1986, with a drawing of Martin Luther King Jr. and a quote:

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

Inside the seven-page spread, the first article was an editorial titled “Discrimination still a reality.” The article detailed one student’s discovery that his upbringing had instilled upon him racist beliefs that were challenged as he grew older.

“I’m ashamed to admit it, but when I was young, I really believed blacks were lazy and wanted to be on welfare. After all, that’s what white people who told me it was wrong to lie were saying.”

Other articles included an article detailing basketball player Bennie Bolton’s secret love of drawing and writing poetry. A quote from Bolton reads as follows:

“The School of Design made me lose my enjoyment of art. I prefer to draw every-day people and famous leaders like Martin Luther King, Malcom X and John Kennedy because they mean something to me.”

One year later, on Feb. 2, 1987, NC State ran a second Black History Month special, featuring Kim Ramseur, a black woman who won the Miss NCSU pageant that year. It was not the first year a black woman had won, but it was the first year that both the Miss NCSU and the Miss NCSU runner-up titles went to black students. Runner-up Regina Jenkins was interviewed alongside Ramseur in an article titled “Students go against all odds.” Jenkins had this to say:

“I had been asked to drop out of the race by several black students, but I refused. I felt like if we could get one, we could get two; we had an equal chance of doing well.”

On Feb. 10, 1988, the Technician ran a third Black History Month Special. Inside, was an article titled “First black graduate not intimidated,” which featured an interview with Irwin Holmes, the first black undergraduate at NC State, back in 1960.

Holmes described getting his acceptance letter, being interviewed by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and having a teacher refuse to teach him. Holmes also talked about his first time living on campus with white students, as well as other black students, in Watauga Hall.

“There were some really special guys there. They were in a period of their lives when they were starting to throw away all those crazy things their parents told them. They were starting to think for themselves.”