On March 5, 1974, at the end of “Streak Week,” students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill loosely organized the American Streaker Society. Under a banner proclaiming “Home of the World Champion Streakers,” about 900 naked students ran across campus through a crowd of 6,000 onlookers, accompanied by the University pep band.

Western Carolina University laid claim to the first major streak of the short-lived fad, making North Carolina the streaking epicenter of the nation. All of the major universities in the state and many of the smaller universities and colleges had streaking events on their campuses. Authorities reacted in many different ways to the campus craze, from amused tolerance to arrests and threats of expulsion.

A North Carolina state senator said that he was mulling over the efficacy of introducing a Streaker Ban Bill. It was unnecessary, though, since the phenomenon faded almost as suddenly as it had appeared.

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