Chronology

Newcomers & Changing Communities, Civil rights era: 6 dated entries from the full dataset. Back to the highlights →

1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
2. 1946 Victory Village is built to house married veterans at UNCPostwar housing · Chapel Hill (UNC south campus)

   As returning veterans pushed enrollment to about 6,800, the federal government put up the prefabricated metal houses of Victory Village on 65 acres of UNC's south campus in 1946. About 350 student families lived there, and the last units were torn down in the early 1970s for the expansion of UNC Hospitals.

3. August 21, 1952 Farmers Home Administration pushes livestock to raise tenant incomes near Cedar GroveFarm program · Cedar Grove

   The News of Orange County reported a Farmers Home Administration effort to raise tenant income by adding livestock to tobacco farming. Tenants on the Banks Wilson farm near Cedar Grove added hogs and other animals, and 42 county farm families had FHA operating loans.

4. 1954–1959 Tenant farming drops sharply in Orange CountyCensus statistic · Orange County

   Tenant-operated farms in Orange County fell from 513 of 1,939 farms in 1954 to 295 of 1,405 in 1959, and croppers fell from 261 to 135. In 1959, 500 of the county's farms were classed as tobacco farms.

5. 1967 UNC students open SHAC, the nation's first student-run free clinicFounding or opening · Orange County

   The Student Health Action Coalition began in 1967 with a few UNC medical students seeing patients in supporters' homes. It now holds a free Wednesday evening clinic at the Carrboro Community Health Center, with student interpreting teams in Spanish and Mandarin.

6. 1970 Orange–Chatham Comprehensive Health Services beginsInstitutional milestone · Orange and Chatham counties

   Orange-Chatham Comprehensive Health Services began in 1970 as a joint venture of UNC's Division of Health Affairs and a local community action program, bringing federally funded primary care to rural residents. UNC staffed its health centers, including Prospect Hill and Haywood-Moncure, from September 1970, and the program later became Piedmont Health.

7. By July 1975 Chapel Hill churches and residents sponsor Vietnamese refugee familiesDated milestone · Chapel Hill and Carrboro

   By July 1975 Chapel Hill residents had sponsored two Vietnamese refugee families and expected more. Four churches pledged about $1,500 for a family sponsored by UNC historian Thomas Reefe, and volunteers were directed to INFO, a referral service in the Inter-Church Council building.

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.