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Libraries, Archives & Public Memory, Civil rights era: 19 dated entries from the full dataset. Back to the highlights →
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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A Negro library committee was already running library service for Black readers in Orange County
The committee met in September 1945 under chairman Mrs. M. D. McPherson, reported over a hundred new books received and 800 books circulated during the summer, and was assembling book kits for rural areas. Miss Annie Cameron was named as one of the people who started the library for Black residents of the county.
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Marinda McPherson sings a joint recital at the Orange County school auditorium
Mrs. M. D. McPherson and Galvin Lampley gave a joint recital in the Orange County school auditorium in Hillsboro. She sang The Star by James H. Rogers and Because by Guy d'Hardelot, and Lampley played De Falla and Chopin.
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Hyconeechee Regional Library is established
The three county library systems incorporated as one region to enlarge book collections, run a shared bookmobile and provide trained supervision. The regional board held its second meeting on September 13, 1948 at the Confederate Memorial Library in Hillsboro, with Sydney Green of Orange County as president and Mrs. Douglas Davis as regional librarian.
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Marinda McPherson sponsors the annual kite contest at the Hillsboro school
The annual kite contest sponsored by Mrs. M. D. McPherson was held on the school playground in Hillsboro, with prizes for the fastest getaway, the longest distance, dash and altitude, and the most original kite.
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The Orange County Negro Public Library held its grand opening at the community center in Hillsboro
The library opened on a Sunday afternoon from 3 to 5 p.m. with Mrs. M. D. McPherson as directress and Miss Victoria Craig as librarian. Mrs. Douglas Davis, the tri-county regional librarian, sponsored the event and spoke, and Mrs. Eliza Webb attended for the Confederate Memorial Library.
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R. D. W. Connor is buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery
Connor died in February 1950, a year after retiring from the university, and was buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery.
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Carrboro Civic Club opens a public library
The Carrboro Public Library, a project of the Carrboro Civic Club, opened on March 22, 1950, with an open house at the club's building near the Carrboro school. Mrs. Jack Shields was librarian, and books were lent free each Wednesday afternoon, with loans from the bookmobile and the county library in Hillsborough adding to the collection.
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Black residents opened a fund drive to build the Orange County Negro Public Library a building of its own
The library then held 2,254 books in a single room with shelves full and volumes stacked on the floor, and had circulated 2,015 books in the year. A committee including Mrs. Marinda D. McPherson, A. L. Stanback and Mrs. M. C. Burt asked for donations, naming $100 for outside sheeting and $70 for a roof.
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Orange County Negro Public Library dedicates its own building
About 150 people attended an open house on May 27, 1951 dedicating the Orange County Negro Public Library's own building in Hillsborough, a structure bought from Camp Butner and put up with volunteer labor. Begun in 1942 by Marinda McPherson, the library had opened to the public in 1949 and now held more than 3,000 books.
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The General Assembly lets Hillsboro convey the library lot to the Hillsboro Library Association
A 1957 act authorized the Hillsboro town commissioners to convey the lot at Tryon and Churton streets holding the Hillsboro Library to the Hillsboro Library Association, and an adjoining lot to the Presbyterian church. Either lot would revert to the town if it stopped being used for the purpose named in the act.
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Orange County Historical Museum is founded
The Hillsborough Garden Club, led by Mrs. Clarence Jones, founded the Orange County Historical Museum, which opened in November 1957 on the second floor of the 1845 Orange County Courthouse after the county commissioners approved the space and gave $250. The museum moved to its Churton Street home in 1983.
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Cornelia Spencer Love serves as a founding trustee of the Chapel Hill Public Library
Love was a trustee of the public library from its start in 1958 until 1970 and secretary of its board of directors. The library began in a small house in downtown Chapel Hill.
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Chapel Hill Public Library opens
Chapel Hill's first public library held its formal opening on December 15, 1958 in the east wing of the Hill House on West Franklin Street, with about 4,500 books, 2,000 of them lent by state and regional libraries. It moved to its own building at 523 East Franklin Street in 1967 and to Pritchard Park in 1994.
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Cornelia Spencer Love gives private funds toward a new library on East Franklin Street
Love donated private money during the 1960s to help build the town's new public library on East Franklin Street.
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Hyconeechee Regional Library director David Flick writes a books column for the News of Orange County
By January 1962 the News of Orange County was running "Between the Covers," a column of news and comment on books in the public library by the director of the Hyconeechee Regional Library. The North Carolina Library Association's 1962 directory lists David Flick as the region's director, at Yanceyville.
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Orange County was still running a separate library for Black readers
The county bookmobile schedule printed in March 1962 listed a Thursday stop from 1:30 to 2:00 at the Orange Co. Negro Public Library. The previous year's vacation reading club invited children to register either at the Confederate Memorial Public Library or at the Orange County Negro Public Library in Hillsboro.
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Marinda Dunnigan McPherson is recorded singing songs she learned from her family
McKellar Israel recorded McPherson in the fall of 1972 and the fall of 1973, singing children's games, play party songs and spirituals she learned from family members, among them songs she first recalled hearing her grandmother Marinda Hart sing about 1920. Israel also interviewed her and her husband David McPherson about community events and history.
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The Community Center is renamed for William M. Hargraves
Chapel Hill's Roberson Street Center, built in the 1940s as the town's segregated Negro Community Center, was renamed in 1973 the William M. Hargraves Recreation Center. Hargraves, a Black resident who had served on the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Commission, had died in an automobile accident.
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The Southern Oral History Program is founded
UNC's Southern Oral History Program was founded in 1973 under historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, its founding director until 2011, and was first housed in the history department. Its interviews with Southerners, now more than 7,500 recordings kept in Wilson Library, include many Chapel Hill and Orange County narrators.
The other dated entries wait behind a subject, a place, an era, a month, or the All dated entries switch, and each storyline’s page carries its own component entries. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. Each card’s “Correct this” link opens the contact form with the entry already named. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated September 14, 2026.
