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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, expand to see all 1,473 dated entries and where they connect to the index.

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News, Journalism & Broadcasting, Civil rights era: 9 dated entries from the full dataset. Back to the highlights →

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9 dated entries
1953Civil rights era
  1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  2. WCHL begins broadcasting

    Broadcast milestone · Chapel Hill

    WCHL, Chapel Hill's new commercial radio station, went on the air in January 1953 at 1360 on the dial with 1,000 watts, broadcasting from sunrise to sunset from a site on the Durham highway. General manager Sandy McClamroch ran it with partners Roy E. Fullen and Lonnie Dark; its first broadcast was set for January 18.

  3. WUNC-TV begins broadcasting

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    WUNC-TV began broadcasting from Chapel Hill on January 8, 1955.

  4. Sandy McClamroch is elected to the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen

    Election · Chapel Hill

    McClamroch, one of five candidates for three seats, was elected on May 5, 1959 with F. E. Strowd and Roland Giduz, and was sworn in with Mayor Oliver K. Cornwell the following Monday night. Campaigning, he had called for coordinating town and university planning and for bringing the university's payments for town services above the table.

  5. Sandy McClamroch is elected mayor of Chapel Hill without opposition

    Election · Chapel Hill

    McClamroch ran unopposed for mayor in the May 1961 town election. Before the vote he took questions from residents at a public meeting at the Negro Community Center sponsored by the Chapel Hill Fellowship for School Integration and the Civic Club, and on a WUNC radio panel, saying he wanted to improve the town's public relations and would discuss merging Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

  6. McClamroch is sworn in as mayor and Joe Page is named to his aldermen seat

    Town government · Chapel Hill

    McClamroch and three re-elected aldermen, Adelaide Walters, Paul Wager and Hubert Robinson, were sworn in at the Monday night meeting of the Board of Aldermen by Recorder's Court Judge William Stewart. The board named businessman Joe Page to the unexpired two year aldermen's term McClamroch left on becoming mayor, and elected Mrs. Walters mayor pro tem.

  7. John E. Greenbacker Jr. leads the Dialectic and Philanthropic literary society

    Student organization office · Chapel Hill

    The federal court's findings in Dickson v. Sitterson list Greenbacker as president of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Society, one of the recognized student organizations whose officers brought the Speaker Ban suit. The Daily Tar Heel likewise named him as Di-Phi president among the ten student leaders who wrote to Chancellor Sitterson on March 1, 1966.

  8. John E. Greenbacker Jr. serves as associate editor of the Daily Tar Heel

    Student journalism · Chapel Hill

    The masthead of the December 7, 1966 Daily Tar Heel lists Greenbacker as associate editor under editor Fred Thomas. He wrote signed opinion pieces, and a letter in the same issue takes issue with his Sunday column profiling the SDS leader Gary Waller.

  9. UNC names its new bookstore building for Josephus Daniels

    Naming · Chapel Hill

    In 1968 the university named its newly completed bookstore, which housed the Book Exchange and other student services, for Josephus Daniels, class of 1885 and a long-time trustee.

  10. Phillips Russell publishes These Old Stone Walls

    Publication · Chapel Hill

    Russell's last book, a collection of stories and historical anecdotes about Chapel Hill, appeared in 1972, two years before he died.

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.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026