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When we lived in Sullivan

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soon after I arrived

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there was a sign placed on Jim Stewart and my door,

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and interestingly enough I think-and this was partly planned-

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we lived in a suite and so of course there were four rooms in the suite and you'd share the bathroom,

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and two of the guys in the suite were also from Durham

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so we had that regional connection and then the other guys in the suite tended to not interact very much.

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But we came back and there was a sign: "SPONGE is out to get you."

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So of course, you know, we were new to the campus

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and we had made connections with older African American students

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so we went over and said can you guys help us out with this?

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So they smiled and said, oh yes, "SPONGE" stands for

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the "society for the prevention of n-word getting everything," s-p-o-n-g-e.

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So they laughed and said, yeah, you know, it's just somebody trying to scare you,

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but we've never seen them yet in the years that we've been here, so we said, okay, fine,

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but at least they knew that some darkies were now in this particular room.

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Then quite frankly whenever you walked out of the elevator

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to go to class you would look up,

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because back then water balloons were known to come straight down off of the balcony

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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.

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So that was standard morning behavior whenever you came out,

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and then you'd walk by Bragaw Hall and you'd hear words reflecting a lack of respect coming your way,

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but again you don't know who it is,

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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

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to get our degree and move on.