Black History Month: Shaw alumnus Forbes recalls heady days of civil rights era, visit from MLK Jr.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- As Black History Month draws to a close, ABC11 is going one-on-one with living history in Raleigh. The Rev. Dr. David Forbes is a Shaw University alumnus who was a founding member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC.

Forbes was a 20-year-old sophomore when Shaw hosted students and civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from across the South, which led to SNCC's establishment.

"It was an exciting time," Forbes said in a sit-down with ABC11 on Wednesday. "It was a time of political and social energy."

Forbes said that despite the historical weight of the moment he participated in, he wasn't scared or overwhelmed by the experience.

"It's almost as if history had prepared me to participate at that level," he recalled.

The son of a Pentecostal pastor, Forbes grew up in the shadow of Shaw on Bloodworth Street in southeast Raleigh. He was a sophomore when Shaw President William Strassner asked him to work with civil rights icon Ella Baker to set up a meeting with Black student leaders across the South -- and work with leaders of the movement. What followed was the creation of SNCC, which followed the model of the Greensboro sit-ins, which had taken place just months earlier.

"Awareness of the importance of the moment came very quickly. Because Dr. King, for instance, spoke to us as students and told us that what we were about -- picketing and sit-ins -- would be transformative," Forbes said.

It turned out to be transformative both for the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the history of southeast Raleigh. Historian and author Carmen Cauthen said the university that came to be known as "Mother Shaw" was a natural setting for the SNCC meetings.

"Shaw University always opened its arms and welcomed the community in," Cauthen said.

The meetings in 1960 also provided an opportunity for young people to join a sweeping movement and inject new energy and momentum to it.

"Young people who are in college, they're thinking about things differently. So they're not as concerned about, you know, 'how's this going to affect my profession? How's this going to affect my life at home?' They are in the moment," Cauthen said.

As Forbes now recalls, it was challenging work -- even frightening at times.

"Anti-civil rights people would come around with chains and baseball bats and with their cigarettes to put on your skin; we were trained to take it," he said.

But he's reminded of the guidance that Baker, a Shaw alumna, gave a group of young students as they led the next generation of change.

"Don't look to the elders, but look into your hearts and into society and do what you think is best that way," he said.