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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1,401–1,600 of 1,936, 200 to a page.Back to highlights

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195 dated events and 5 storylines
1966Civil rights era
  1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  2. Barred from Carroll Hall, Frank Wilkinson speaks to about 350 people at the Hillel House

    Publication, speech or performance · Hillel House, Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill

    That evening campus security officer Arthur Beaumont, acting on the chancellor's orders, kept Wilkinson, Paul Dickson and about 200 students out of Carroll Hall, and the group moved to the Hillel House on Cameron Avenue, where almost 350 people heard Wilkinson speak on HUAC. He told them a test case with several plaintiffs would be prepared at once.

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III

  3. Barred from campus by the Speaker Ban, Frank Wilkinson addressed UNC students from the Chapel Hill side of the wall

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    After Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson refused him campus speaking privileges, Frank Wilkinson spoke for about 10 minutes from the Franklin Street sidewalk while about 1,200 students and faculty stood across the low stone wall on McCorkle Place. Student body president Paul Dickson introduced him and predicted a court case.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: Frank Wilkinson · J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III

    Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

  4. Herbert Aptheker gives his evening talk at the Community Church

    Publication, speech or performance · Community Church, Purefoy Road, Chapel Hill

    Kept off campus, Aptheker gave his evening talk to about 350 people at the interdenominational Community Church on Purefoy Road. Paul Dickson then announced a Free Speech Defense Fund to pay for a lawsuit.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker

    Subject: Community Church of Chapel Hill

  5. Herbert Aptheker speaks to students across the McCorkle Place wall

    Publication, speech or performance · McCorkle Place wall at Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    At noon Paul Dickson led Aptheker, invited by SDS and the Committee for Free Inquiry, onto McCorkle Place near the Confederate monument, where campus police chief Arthur Beaumont halted Dickson's introduction and warned of arrest. Aptheker crossed the low stone wall to the Franklin Street sidewalk and spoke to a crowd estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 on the campus side.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker

    Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

  6. Student leaders ask the chancellor to let Wilkinson and Aptheker speak on campus

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Paul Dickson and the heads of Carolina Forum, the YMCA, the YWCA, Di-Phi, the Carolina Political Union and SDS wrote to Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson asking that Wilkinson speak on March 23 and Aptheker on March 25, or on later dates.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III · George E. Nicholson III · Robert S. Powell Jr. · James A. Medford · Eunice H. Milton · John E. Greenbacker Jr. · Eric Van Loon · Gary Waller · Stuart Matthews

    Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies · University YMCA

  7. Gary Waller debates Wilson Clark at the first Di-Phi Senate debate

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    The Daily Tar Heel announced that Waller and Carolina Conservative Club president Wilson Clark would be the principal speakers at the inaugural debate of the Di-Phi Senate that evening in New West, on whether human rights should supersede property rights in a modern society.

    People: John E. Greenbacker Jr.

    Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies

  8. Bob Powell wins the runoff for UNC student body president

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Powell, the Student Party candidate, beat University Party candidate Teddy O'Toole by 2,401 votes to 1,993 in the runoff, two days before the Speaker Ban suit was filed.

  9. Students and the two speakers file Dickson v. Sitterson against the Speaker Ban

    Law, policy or court · U.S. District Court, Greensboro

    Minutes after Sitterson refused the students' request, Paul Dickson and eleven other student leaders, joined by Wilkinson and Aptheker as plaintiffs, sued Sitterson, President William C. Friday and the trustees in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Attorney McNeill Smith took the case without fee.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker · William C. Friday · George E. Nicholson III · Robert S. Powell Jr. · James A. Medford · Eunice H. Milton · John E. Greenbacker Jr. · Eric Van Loon · Gary Waller · Stuart Matthews · Frank Wilkinson

  10. Chancellor Sitterson makes student leaders erase a taped meeting

    Chapel Hill

    The Daily Tar Heel reported that Paul Dickson, Eric Van Loon and George Nicholson met Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson in his office for about thirty minutes, and that Van Loon carried a tape recorder. When Sitterson found the conversation was being recorded he made them play the tape back and erase it, saying it upset him that they had not mentioned it.

    People: Paul Dickson III · George E. Nicholson III · J. Carlyle Sitterson

  11. Powell is named to the student-faculty committee on visiting speakers

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The Daily Tar Heel listed Bob Powell first among the members of the student-faculty committee on visiting speakers, in the same story that printed the students' request to the chancellor.

  12. Powell takes office as UNC student body president

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The Daily Tar Heel said the new president's inauguration was set for April 14, 1966. Its April 15 issue describes Bob Powell acting as student body president with Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson at a campus clothing drive.

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson

  13. Time magazine names Hardison one of the country's outstanding college teachers

    Chapel Hill

    Time magazine featured Hardison, then teaching English at Chapel Hill, as one of the country's outstanding college instructors.

  14. Hortense McClinton joins the UNC School of Social Work as the university's first Black faculty member

    Appointment, election or service · UNC School of Social Work, Chapel Hill

    McClinton turned down a grant-funded UNC offer in 1964 and accepted a better-funded position in the School of Social Work in July 1966. She was the only Black faculty member at UNC for three years.

  15. Old East is listed in the National Register

    Naming or commemoration · Old East, Chapel Hill

    On October 15, 1966 the National Park Service listed Old East in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

    Subject: Old East

  16. Supreme Court hears Klopfer v. North Carolina

    Law, policy or court · Washington, D.C.; Orange County case

    The Supreme Court heard arguments in Peter Klopfer’s speedy-trial case, arising from an Orange County trespass prosecution.

    Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 35 events

  17. Black student activism at UNC

    Storyline · 18 events · Chapel Hill

    Black students founded the Black Student Movement at UNC in November 1967. It presented 23 demands to Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson in December 1968, backed the cafeteria workers' strike of 1969, and in the 1990s pressed for a freestanding Black cultural center, which opened as the Sonja Haynes Stone Center in 2004.

  18. Carolyn Kizer is a visiting writer-in-residence at UNC

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Poet Carolyn Kizer was one of four writers-in-residence UNC brought to campus for the 1967–68 year, meeting informally with classes and student writers and giving a public address. During the residency she directed the student publication project of a new English course on little magazines.

    People: David Madden

  19. Health care across language and immigration

    Storyline · 12 events · Orange County

    From the student-run SHAC clinic of 1967 to UNC’s interpreter services, the CAMPOS program and the Center for Latino Health of 2008, care for the county’s newcomers has grown with its languages, and the health department was serving clients in almost 20 languages by 2014. El Futuro’s bilingual mental health work in Carrboro and the refugee wellness program of 2015 carry it on.

  20. J. Isaac Copeland directs the Southern Historical Collection

    Appointment, election or service · Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Copeland served as chief of the UNC library's Manuscripts Department and director of the Southern Historical Collection from 1967 to 1975, between James Welch Patton and Carolyn A. Wallace, and taught history at UNC.

    People: James Welch Patton · Carolyn Andrews Wallace

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  21. Louis D. Rubin Jr. teaches English at UNC-Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Rubin came to UNC from Hollins College in 1967 and taught English for twenty-two years, retiring from teaching in 1989 as University Distinguished Professor.

  22. Samuel Selden returns to Chapel Hill as visiting professor of dramatic art

    Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    After UCLA and Southern Illinois University, Selden came back to the Department of Dramatic Art as a visiting professor from 1967 to 1971.

  23. The new Davie Hall becomes the first modernist building on the main campus

    Construction or physical change · Davie Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Designed by Holloway-Reeves with Brian Shawcroft of Raleigh and built in 1967, Davie Hall is an unornamented tan brick and concrete International Style building. It stands in sharp contrast to the Federal and Greek Revival buildings of the old campus nearby.

    Subject: Davie Hall

  24. UNC names a new south campus residence hall for Hinton James

    Naming or commemoration · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The university built a ten-story residence hall on south campus in 1967 and named it for Hinton James, the first student to reach Chapel Hill in 1795. The hall houses 964 students in eight-person suites.

  25. UNC students open SHAC, the nation's first student-run free clinic

    Founding 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.

  26. A three-judge federal court hears arguments in Dickson v. Sitterson at Greensboro

    Law, policy or court · Greensboro (U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina)

    Judges Clement F. Haynsworth, Edwin M. Stanley and Algernon L. Butler heard 45 minutes a side in the U.S. Middle District courtroom. McNeill Smith called the law vague, ambiguous, unconstitutional and void on its face; W. T. Joyner Sr. answered for the University that the 1965 amendment had abolished the original ban. The court then held the case under advisement for a year.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: Paul Dickson III

  27. The UNC law school dedicates an issue of the North Carolina Law Review to Albert Coates

    Award or honor · School of Law, UNC, Chapel Hill

    When Coates gave up full-time teaching in 1967, the law school marked it by dedicating the November 1967 North Carolina Law Review to him. That year the North Carolina Bar Association also gave him its John J. Parker award, and Governor Dan K. Moore presented him the North Carolina Award.

    People: Dan K. Moore

    Subject: UNC School of Law

  28. Charles Kuralt wins a Peabody Award for On the Road

    Award or honor · New York

    Kuralt received a personal Peabody Award for On the Road, his segment of Americana on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He was then a CBS News correspondent based in New York.

  29. Daphne Athas teaches creative writing at UNC

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Athas taught creative writing at UNC from 1968 until she retired from teaching in 2009. In the 1970s she took over the stylistics course Glossolalia, known for its annual student performances, and her students included Randall Kenan, Michael Parker and Sarah Dessen.

    People: Randall Kenan

  30. Jeff MacNelly draws editorial cartoons for the Chapel Hill Weekly

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    UNC student Jeff MacNelly began drawing editorial cartoons for the Chapel Hill Weekly under editor Jim Shumaker, then left school to work for the paper full time. He modeled the editor in his later comic strip Shoe on Shumaker.

    Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

  31. The Student Union and Student Stores open beside the undergraduate library around the Pit

    Construction or physical change · The Pit, South Road, UNC, Chapel Hill

    In 1968 the Frank Porter Graham Student Union and the Josephus Daniels Student Stores opened on South Road with the new R. B. House Undergraduate Library. The two-story concrete and glass buildings frame a sunken brick court, the Pit, and moved the center of student life there.

  32. The undergraduate library named for R. B. House opens

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The building put up in 1964 was occupied by the university in 1968 as the Robert B. House Undergraduate Library, named for the former chancellor.

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  33. UNC names its new bookstore building for Josephus Daniels

    Naming or commemoration · 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.

  34. UNC's new law school building is finished on South Road

    Construction or physical change · South Road, UNC, Chapel Hill

    A new building for the UNC School of Law was completed across South Road in 1968, part of the decade's boom of modernist construction along that street.

    Subject: UNC School of Law

  35. A federal court struck down the Speaker Ban law in Dickson v. Sitterson

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    A three-judge federal court in Greensboro ruled North Carolina's Speaker Ban law unconstitutional because it was too vague. The suit had been filed in March 1966 by UNC student leaders and the two barred speakers, Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker, and UNC's leaders hoped the ruling ended the long controversy.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III

  36. Governor Moore recommends that the state and the trustees not appeal the Speaker Ban ruling

    Law, policy or court · Raleigh

    Three days after the decision, Governor Dan K. Moore said the state should not appeal the federal court's finding that the law was unconstitutionally vague and recommended that the trustees not appeal either, voicing his hope that they and the administration would keep the campuses from being exploited as outlets of discord and strife.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: Dan K. Moore

  37. The UNC trustees adopt six temporary speaker rules in place of the voided regulations

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    A week after the ruling the trustees approved, over Senator Tom White's plea to proceed calmly, six interim rules on the manner of a speaker's appearance (a senior faculty member presiding at the chancellor's request, public forums, balanced views, audience questions, sponsorship by recognized student groups), with the items the court had struck removed, pending further study by the executive committee on March 8.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: William C. Friday · J. Carlyle Sitterson

  38. The trustees' executive committee asks Governor Moore to name a subcommittee on a permanent speaker policy

    Law, policy or court · Charlotte

    Meeting in Charlotte, the Board of Trustees' Executive Committee voted to ask the governor to appoint a subcommittee to study speaker regulations and recommend a permanent policy to the full board in May. Senator Tom White, who agreed with the state's decision not to appeal, said the board had resolved nothing; President Friday hoped the matter would be settled by May.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: William C. Friday · Dan K. Moore

  39. Frank Wilkinson speaks on the UNC campus in Howell Hall

    Publication, speech or performance · Howell Hall, UNC

    Three months after the ruling, Wilkinson gave his first permitted talk on the UNC campus, speaking on HUAC in Howell Hall at the invitation of the Carolina Political Union to about 35 people.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: Frank Wilkinson

  40. Albert Coates publishes What the University of North Carolina Meant to Me

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Coates's collection of autobiographical pieces followed him from a Smithfield boyhood through his student years and law teaching to the building of the Institute, with long sections on his work with the FBI and with the University's Extension Division.

  41. Alexander Julian opens Alexander's Ambition on Franklin Street

    Founding or opening · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    At 21, while his parents were away for a month, Alexander Julian took over a Franklin Street storefront and opened his own shop, Alexander's Ambition, at the site where Julian's now operates.

  42. Arthur Cleveland Nash, UNC's architect of the 1920s, dies in Baltimore

    Life event · Baltimore, Maryland

    He died at the home of his daughter Katharine and her husband, Edward Caldwell, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  43. Blyden Jackson joins UNC's English department and becomes its first tenured Black professor

    Appointment, election or service · UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill

    Blyden Jackson joined the UNC-Chapel Hill English department in 1969 and became the university's first tenured Black faculty member. He established the study of African American literature at Carolina and later served as assistant dean of the Graduate School, working to recruit Black faculty and students.

  44. Chi Omega joins its two East Franklin houses with a new center section

    Construction or physical change · Chi Omega, 311-313 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The sorority gained room by building a middle section linking the houses at 311 and 313 East Franklin.

  45. George Brown Tindall is named a Kenan professor of history

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    UNC gave Tindall a Kenan professorship in 1969, five years after he became a full professor of history.

  46. Taylor Hall is completed and named for Dean Isaac M. Taylor

    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill

    The University completed a medical school building in Chapel Hill in 1969 that honors Isaac Taylor, then dean of the School of Medicine.

    Subject: UNC School of Medicine

  47. The Cat's Cradle opens in Chapel Hill

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Cat's Cradle opened in 1969 as a tiny basement music club near the UNC campus, named for Kurt Vonnegut's novel. After moves within Chapel Hill it settled at 300 East Main Street in Carrboro in 1993, where it became a regular stop for touring acts.

    Subject: Cat’s Cradle

  48. Two wings designed by Archie Royal Davis are added to the Carolina Inn

    Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill

    The third major addition to the Carolina Inn, designed by Archie Royal Davis in 1969, was largely finished by commencement in May 1970. Two wings on the Pittsboro Street side held a new cafeteria, ballroom and larger kitchen and forty-five more guest rooms, and the main entrance moved from Cameron Avenue to Pittsboro Street.

    Subject: The Carolina Inn

  49. UNC foodworkers’ struggles

    Storyline · 13 events · Chapel Hill

    UNC cafeteria workers struck twice in 1969 over pay and working conditions.

    Part of Black student activism at UNC · 18 events

  50. UNC head football coach Bill Dooley buys the Wood house on Fern Lane

    Property or economic transaction · Wood House, 110 Fern Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill

    Dooley bought the 1957 Ranch built for radiologist Ernest Wood and lived there until 1994.

  51. UNC faculty publicly debate dropping ROTC, and a Faculty Council committee is named

    Law, policy or court · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    An open faculty discussion of removing ROTC led to a Faculty Council committee under historian George V. Taylor, which proposed a Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense to take in naval and aerospace science while keeping ROTC as an option.

    People: George Vanderbeck Taylor

  52. UNC food workers' strike

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    On February 23, 1969 food service workers at UNC's Lenoir Hall left their counters and sat down at the cafeteria tables, and by the next morning nearly 100 dining hall employees had refused to report for work. The strike ended on March 21 when the University agreed to raise the hourly minimum from $1.60 to $1.80, pay roughly $180,000 in back wages, and appoint a Black supervisor.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: Mary Smith · Elizabeth Brooks · J. Carlyle Sitterson · Robert W. Scott · Julius L. Chambers

    Subject: Lenoir Hall

  53. Governor Scott orders Lenoir Hall reopened under Highway Patrol guard

    Law, policy or court · Lenoir Hall, Chapel Hill

    After Chancellor Sitterson closed Lenoir Hall on March 5 during the foodworkers' strike, Governor Bob Scott ordered it reopened, sent at least 50 state patrolmen to Chapel Hill and mobilized a National Guard unit in Durham. The dining hall opened the next morning with more than 40 riot-equipped troopers and about 25 Chapel Hill police at its entrances while as many as 300 people picketed.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson

    Subject: Lenoir Hall

  54. State troopers clear Manning Hall on Governor Scott's orders

    Law, policy or court · Manning Hall, Chapel Hill

    About 75 state troopers ringed Manning Hall, the striking food workers' headquarters, on the afternoon of March 13 after Governor Bob Scott ordered it vacated. Students left before police arrived, and a crowd of up to 1,000 then rallied on the steps of South Building.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson

    Subject: South Building

  55. Rebecca Clark carries voters to the polls in Howard Lee's mayoral campaign

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Clark worked on Howard Lee's campaign for mayor, sending her son's Greyhound bus street to street to take voters to the polls, and helped count ballots by hand on election night. Lee won the May 6, 1969 election.

    People: Howard N. Lee

  56. UNC hands campus dining to the SAGA Food Service contract

    Property or economic transaction · Lenoir Hall, Chapel Hill

    Two months after settling the spring strike the University signed a contract with SAGA Food Services on May 19, 1969, ending its own management of campus dining. SAGA laid off many temporary and part-time workers within weeks, which set up the second strike that autumn.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    Subject: Lenoir Hall

  57. UNC foodworkers strike a second time

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    About 250 of UNC's 275 cafeteria workers, organized as the UNC Non-Academic Employees Union, struck SAGA Food Services on November 7, 1969 over pay, job reclassification, and the firing of workers for union activity. They voted on November 21 to affiliate with AFSCME, and the strike was settled in December after Ralph Abernathy visited the strikers and Black students from across the state threatened to converge on the campus.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Mary Smith · Elizabeth Brooks

  58. Striking SAGA cafeteria workers vote 94 to 26 to join AFSCME

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    In the strike's third week the full-time SAGA food service workers marched from a noon rally at Wilson Library to the Student Union and voted 94 to 26 for representation by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. SAGA's regional director said mediation with the union would begin that weekend.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: Elizabeth Brooks

  59. Two union officials and a striking worker are arrested at Lenoir Hall; Chancellor Sitterson pledges to subsidize workers SAGA does not rehire

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    On the strike's 24th day two union officials and a striking worker were arrested at Lenoir Dining Hall in the morning. Later that day Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson said the University would subsidize any workers SAGA did not rehire, after efforts to revive negotiations had stalled on the rehiring question.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson

    Subject: Lenoir Hall

  60. Police charge pickets at Lenoir Hall; nine are arrested and four hurt

    Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill

    About 25 police charged a group of pickets and sympathizers at the north end of Lenoir Hall when they did not disperse. Nine people were arrested, including AFSCME official Gene Gore and graduate student John Wheeler, and four were treated at Memorial Hospital. The next day Mayor Howard Lee announced that town police were being withdrawn from the strike scene.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

    People: Howard N. Lee

    Subject: Lenoir Hall

  61. The 31-day SAGA strike is settled

    Closing or ending · Chapel Hill

    Union and management reached a settlement on Monday morning and the workers approved the contract unanimously, returning to work the next day. The contract ran to June 30, 1970 and provided job classification, seniority, a minimum four-hour day, ten paid holidays, ten sick days, an end to split shifts and a no-strike clause; the University promised to find jobs for the more than 50 workers SAGA planned to phase out by February 1, 1970.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

  62. Eight men charged during the cafeteria strike appear in Orange County District Court

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    Howard Fuller of Malcolm X Liberation University, two of its students, AFSCME official Gene Gore and four others charged with disorderly conduct, riot, failure to disperse or interfering with officers during the strike appeared before Judge D. M. McLellan, who continued the cases to January 7, 1970 at the defendants' request.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

  63. Azalea Hill, designed by William Lanier Hunt, is planted at the Botanical Garden

    Construction or physical change · North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill

    The garden's first specific planting project, sponsored by the Men's Garden Club of Chapel Hill and designed by Hunt, neared completion as work-study students under Ken Moore set native azaleas along a new trail.

    Subject: North Carolina Botanical Garden

  64. Berryhill Hall is completed and named for W. Reece Berryhill

    Naming or commemoration · UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill

    The University completed a medical school building in Chapel Hill in 1970 and named it for W. Reece Berryhill, who had been dean of the School of Medicine since 1941.

    Subject: UNC School of Medicine

  65. Daniel Okun serves as chair of the UNC faculty

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Okun was chair of the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill from 1970 to 1973, while still heading his department.

  66. Killing of James Cates

    Storyline · 18 events · Chapel Hill

    James Cates, a Black Chapel Hill man, was stabbed to death in the Pit at UNC in November 1970, and three Durham men were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971. Memorial marches followed, a remembrance coalition formed, the Justice Department opened a cold-case investigation in 2022, and UNC dedicated a memorial to him in the Pit that year.

  67. Northside and Pine Knolls residents resist federal urban renewal

    Protest or organizing · Northside and Pine Knolls, Chapel Hill

    When Northside and Pine Knolls were targeted for urban renewal, residents confronted HUD and avoided the wholesale clearance seen in Durham's Hayti, winning home improvements and new construction instead.

    Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

  68. Roberta Jackson joins UNC's School of Education as its first Black tenure-track faculty member

    Appointment, election or service · UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill

    Roberta Jackson joined the UNC School of Education in 1970, a year after her husband Blyden Jackson joined the English department, as the school's first Black tenure-track faculty member. She earned tenure in 1974 and became the first tenured Black woman in the university's Division of Academic Affairs.

    People: Blyden Jackson

  69. Carolyn Kizer joins the UNC English faculty to head poetry writing

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Kizer joined UNC's English department on February 1, 1970, as a visiting lecturer, to develop a poetry curriculum and head the poetry side of the creative writing program under Max Steele. She remained UNC's poet-in-residence until 1974.

    People: Max Steele · Louis D. Rubin Jr.

  70. Student Legislature passes a resolution calling a class boycott over the invasion of Cambodia

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    On the night of Nixon's Cambodia announcement the Student Legislature passed a resolution urging students to boycott classes on May 6. Student Body President Tom Bello called the strike and a student body meeting the next day, before the Kent State killings turned the one-day boycott into a general strike.

  71. Antiwar marchers lower the Naval Armory flag for the Kent State dead

    Protest or organizing · NROTC Naval Armory, 221 South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill

    During a 2,000-student march against the Cambodia invasion, protesters took down the flag at the armory to half staff for the students killed at Kent State; NROTC students pushed back and raised it again before the march moved on to South Building.

  72. UNC student strike of

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    After the Kent State shootings and the invasion of Cambodia, UNC students began a class boycott on May 5, 1970, and more than 4,000 people marched through downtown Chapel Hill the next day. Classes were not cancelled; the faculty instead voted to let striking students take grades on work completed or finish courses later.

    Part of UNC’s student strike against the Vietnam War, May 1970

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson

  73. The student body meets in Polk Place and more than 4,000 march through downtown Chapel Hill behind four coffins

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Tom Bello chaired an emergency meeting of the student body in Polk Place, then led a march half a mile long down Franklin Street behind four coffins for the Kent State dead; estimates ran from 4,000 to 6,000. That night 900 students planned the boycott, 2,500 held a candlelight memorial at McCorkle Place and marched again down Franklin Street, and strikers camped in Polk Place for an all-night vigil.

  74. The general faculty votes to let striking students take their grades as they stand or finish coursework later

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    With more than 4,000 students rallying outside, the general faculty meeting in Hill Hall overwhelmingly approved a substitute motion by Marvin Silver and Gerhard Lenski calling the strike 'a reasonable, peaceful and responsible course of action' and allowing final grades on work completed so far or delayed completion of course requirements, with a right of appeal. Faculty chairman Daniel Okun's letter the next day explained the policy as no penalties for strike absences and make-up exams for those who could not in conscience sit the scheduled exam.

    People: Joseph W. Straley · Daniel A. Okun · Oscar Knefler Rice

    Subject: Hill Hall

  75. Student Government's 'The Strike Continues?' release turns the strike toward canvassing and calls a Memorial Hall teach-in

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Tom Bello's Student Government press release declared that rallies alone would not end the war and redirected the strike, which it said now involved well over half the student body, toward canvassing, petitions and visits to Congress. It announced a faculty panel on the war for 3 p.m. Monday, May 11 in Memorial Hall with Samuel Wells, James Leutze, Andrew Scott, Daniel Pollitt and David Lapkin.

    Subject: Memorial Hall

  76. Students sit in at South Building and hand Chancellor Sitterson a petition of 800 names confessing to the disruption policy

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Seventy-five to 100 students occupied the South Building lobby for over an hour to protest the trustees' disruption policy and its use against three students charged after the December cafeteria strike. Three were admitted to Chancellor Sitterson's office with a petition of 800 UNC students indicting themselves for violating the policy during the strike's first days; Sitterson said the matter lay with President Friday. Bello and the strike steering committee condemned the sit-in.

    People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · William C. Friday

    Subject: South Building

  77. UNC dedicates Greenlaw Hall

    Chapel Hill

    The university dedicated Greenlaw Hall in Edwin Greenlaw's honor on October 4, 1970. Construction had begun in 1966.

  78. Durham motorcycle gang member charged with murder in the Cates stabbing

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    Durham County officers arrested Ronnie Broadwell, 28, a member of the Durham Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, at Watts Hospital early on the morning of the stabbing, and he was charged with murder and held without bond in the Orange County Jail. By November 24 four white men were in jail and a second man, Bryan King of Durham, faced an assault charge.

  79. James Cates is killed outside the UNC Student Union

    Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill

    James Lewis Cates Jr., 22, a Black Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed outside the UNC Student Union shortly before 2 a.m. during an all-night dance, in a clash with members of Durham's Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, and died at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Three white men charged in his death were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971.

    Part of Killing of James Cates, 1970 · 18 events

  80. Mayor Howard Lee leads a memorial march for James Cates

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    About 65 people joined a memorial march for James Cates led by Mayor Howard Lee and Alderman R. D. Smith, four days after the killing.

    People: Howard N. Lee

  81. Black residents question the police handling of the Cates killing

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Black residents met at the Roberson Street Center to discuss how police handled the stabbing, young Black residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro asked the Justice Department to investigate the campus police, and a fund was started to hire extra counsel for the prosecution. Vice Chancellor Joseph Eagles and Assistant Chancellor Claiborne Jones began reviewing the campus police response.

    Subject: Hargraves Community Center

  82. Three Durham men bound over to the grand jury in the Cates killing

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    At a preliminary hearing in Hillsborough, Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Nelson and William Johnson were bound over to the Orange County Grand Jury on murder charges and held without bond. Medical testimony indicated that immediate care could have prevented Cates's death.

  83. A ten-story chemistry laboratory tower is added to Venable Hall

    Construction or physical change · Venable Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    In 1971 the university added a ten-story laboratory tower for chemistry to Venable Hall, one of the modernist buildings of its 1960s and early 1970s building boom along South Road.

    Subject: Venable Hall

  84. Christopher Fordham serves as dean of the UNC School of Medicine

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Fordham, who had earned a certificate in medicine at UNC in 1949, was dean of the School of Medicine from 1971 to 1979 and for part of that time also vice chancellor for health affairs. The Area Health Education Centers program began under him.

    Subject: UNC School of Medicine

  85. Kenan Laboratories open for the chemistry department

    Chapel Hill

    The chemistry department's Kenan Labs opened in 1971, a building project Little led as chair to give the growing faculty laboratory space.

  86. The former Navy Hall becomes UNC's admissions office

    Construction or physical change · Navy Hall (later Jackson Hall), UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    The university moved its admissions office into the old Navy Hall, then the Faculty Club, in 1971; it was renamed Jackson Hall in 1992.

  87. Woody Durham calls Carolina football and basketball on the radio

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Durham, a 1963 UNC graduate, was the radio play-by-play voice of Tar Heel football and men's basketball for 40 years, calling more than 1,800 broadcasts.

  88. UNC announces Vermont Royster will join its faculty as Kenan professor of journalism and public affairs

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    The university announced that Vermont C. Royster, retiring as editor of The Wall Street Journal, would join the UNC faculty the next September as Kenan professor of journalism and public affairs. He taught journalism and political science in Chapel Hill until 1981.

  89. Trial of three Storm Troopers for the death of James Cates opens

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Paul Nelson and William Johnson went on trial in Orange County Superior Court in Hillsborough before Judge Thomas Cooper on second-degree murder charges, reduced from first degree. District Solicitor Herbert Pierce prosecuted, and prosecution witnesses placed the three defendants around Cates with weapons.

  90. All-white jury acquits three men in the killing of James Cates

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    A jury of 11 men and one woman, all white, found Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Paul Nelson and William Johnson not guilty after about an hour and a half of deliberation. The defense called no witnesses.

  91. Playmakers Theatre (Smith Hall) is listed in the National Register

    Naming or commemoration · Playmakers Theatre (Smith Hall), Chapel Hill

    On June 24, 1971 the National Park Service listed Playmakers Theatre (Smith Hall) in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

    Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

  92. General Assembly gives North Carolina Memorial Hospital its own board of directors

    Law, policy or court · North Carolina Memorial Hospital, Chapel Hill

    Legislation passed in July 1971 created a board of directors for the hospital and separated it administratively from the School of Medicine, whose dean it had answered to since 1956.

    Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital) · UNC School of Medicine

  93. Black Student Movement holds a first-anniversary memorial for James Cates

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill

    The Black Student Movement and the Afro-American Society of Chapel Hill High School gathered at noon at the Confederate Monument and marched across campus to the Pit in memory of Cates. The service also protested the killing of William Murphy by a highway patrolman in Ayden.

    Part of Black student activism at UNC · 18 events

    Subject: Chapel Hill High School

  94. The governor appoints a commission to study the future of the university's water and sewer systems

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Governor Robert W. Scott named a Utilities Study Commission to weigh whether the University of North Carolina should keep, sell or otherwise dispose of the water and sewer systems it operated for Chapel Hill and Carrboro. On May 28, 1976 the commission concluded that divesting most of the university's utility holdings was the best course.

    People: Robert W. Scott

  95. Andy Griffith sets up a scholarship for Carolina drama and music students

    Chapel Hill

    Griffith established a scholarship fund in his name for promising dramatic art and music students at Carolina, which the university says continues today.

  96. Charles E. Daye joins the UNC School of Law as its first Black tenure-track professor

    Appointment, election or service · UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill

    Charles E. Daye, a Durham native, came to the UNC law faculty in 1972 from Covington & Burling as the school's first African American tenure-track professor. He taught torts, housing and community development and administrative advocacy, and advised the Black Law Students Association from 1972 until 2014.

    Subject: UNC School of Law

  97. Frank Porter Graham is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Life event · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill

    Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972), first president of the consolidated University of North Carolina and later a United States senator, was buried in the cemetery.

    Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

  98. Hortense McClinton begins teaching a course on institutional racism

    Appointment, election or service · UNC School of Social Work, Chapel Hill

    In 1972 McClinton launched a course on institutional racism in the UNC School of Social Work.

  99. Jeff MacNelly wins the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

    Award or honor · Richmond

    Jeff MacNelly, a former Chapel Hill Weekly cartoonist then drawing for The Richmond News Leader, won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning at the age of 24.

    Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

  100. North Carolina funds UNC's TEACCH autism program as a statewide system of regional centers

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    State funding in 1972 created a regional-center system for TEACCH, the autism program Eric Schopler had developed at UNC-Chapel Hill, providing clinical services, training and research across North Carolina.

  101. Phillips Russell publishes These Old Stone Walls

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

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

  102. UNC School of Medicine launches the Area Health Education Centers program

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The AHEC program began in 1972 with three regions under an 8.5 million dollar federal contract with the UNC School of Medicine, to train and place health professionals across North Carolina. The General Assembly funded a statewide network of nine regions in 1974, and all nine were running by 1975.

    Subject: UNC School of Medicine

  103. UNC abolishes the office of dean of women

    Closing or ending · Chapel Hill

    The university ended the dean of women's office in 1972, after twenty-six years under Katherine Kennedy Carmichael. She stayed on as associate dean of students for supportive services.

  104. UNC names its new history building Hamilton Hall

    Naming or commemoration · Hamilton Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    The university named the new building occupied by its History Department for J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, founder of the Southern Historical Collection.

  105. Walter Royal Davis serves as a UNC trustee

    Chapel Hill

    Davis sat on the university's board of trustees and in the 1970s argued that proceeds from the state's sale of the university's utilities should go to the university.

  106. Betty Smith is buried in the Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Smith died in January 1972 after being moved to a convalescent home in Shelton, Connecticut. A funeral mass was said at St. Thomas More Church in Chapel Hill and she was buried in the Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery.

  107. N. Ferebee Taylor serves as chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Nelson Ferebee Taylor was the chief administrative officer of the Chapel Hill campus for eight years. His office's records deal with desegregation, the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare lawsuit and consent decree, and campus development.

  108. Black Student Movement march remembers James Cates

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill

    A Black Student Movement march in memory of James Cates was photographed by Les Todd, whose print is now held in the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives at Wilson Library.

    Part of Black student activism at UNC · 18 events

  109. Chancellor Taylor spends a night in Winston Residence Hall

    Protest or organizing · Winston Residence Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor and other administrators stayed overnight in Winston Residence Hall to draw attention to overcrowded student housing. The same year Winston became UNC's first room-by-room coed residence hall.

  110. Henry W. Lewis serves as director of the Institute of Government

    Chapel Hill

    Lewis succeeded to the directorship of the Institute of Government in 1973 and held it until he retired from the faculty in 1979.

    People: Henry Wilkins Lewis

    Subject: Institute of Government

  111. Powell moves from the North Carolina Collection to the history faculty

    Appointment, election or service · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Powell left the North Carolina Collection to teach North Carolina history on the UNC faculty, where he stayed until 1986 and taught more than 6,000 students.

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  112. The Southern Oral History Program is founded

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    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.

    People: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

  113. The William Rand Kenan Jr. Laboratories of Chemistry are dedicated

    Naming or commemoration · UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    The university dedicated the William Rand Kenan Jr. Laboratories of Chemistry, and the chemistry faculty marked the occasion with two days of short courses on their current research.

  114. The Black Student Movement opens Upendo Lounge in Chase Hall

    Founding or opening · Chase Hall, south campus, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Upendo, Swahili for love, opened as a Black student lounge in Chase Hall under the Black Student Movement, with a dedication and a party. It replaced an old mini-union and was open to the whole campus.

  115. H. G. Jones becomes curator of the North Carolina Collection

    Appointment, election or service · Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Jones succeeded William S. Powell as curator of UNC's North Carolina Collection and adjunct professor of history. He held the curatorship until he retired in 1994.

    People: William S. Powell

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  116. The University of North Carolina gives Albert Coates an honorary doctor of laws

    Award or honor · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The University awarded Coates an honorary LL.D. in 1974, three years after Duke University had given him the same degree.

  117. Carolyn Kizer and Po Fei Huang read Chinese poems in Greenlaw Hall

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Kizer, then UNC's poet-in-residence, and Po Fei Huang, director of East Asian language and literature at Yale, read and chanted Chinese poems and translations in 101 Greenlaw as part of a week of programs on East Asia.

  118. Chapel Hill Transit begins service

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill's municipal bus system began running on August 1, 1974, after Mayor Howard Lee and UNC Chancellor Ferebee Taylor cut the ribbon, with eight town, campus and park-and-ride routes. Carrboro was not yet served.

    People: Howard N. Lee

    Subject: Chapel Hill Transit

  119. Lambeth presents the charter for the Order of the Tar Heel One Hundred

    Chapel Hill

    Thomas Lambeth, chairing a committee to study an adjunct to the Board of Trustees, presented its recommendation: a charter for the Order of the Tar Heel One Hundred, renamed the Board of Visitors after 1980.

  120. The Carolina Gay Association forms

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Students who had met weekly since February 1974 as the Gay Awareness Rap Group won recognition from UNC's Dean of Student Affairs in early September 1974 and took the name Carolina Gay Association. The group met in Craige dormitory and in 1976 sponsored the first Southeastern Gay Conference.

    Part of LGBTQ political firsts in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1980s–1990s · 21 events

  121. Carolyn A. Wallace heads the Southern Historical Collection and the Manuscripts Department

    Appointment, election or service · Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    Wallace, born in Hillsborough, served as curator of the UNC library's Manuscripts Department and director of the Southern Historical Collection from 1975 to 1987, following James I. Copeland.

    People: J. Isaac Copeland

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  122. Charles Kuralt wins a second Peabody Award, for On the Road to '76

    Award or honor · New York

    Kuralt received his second personal Peabody Award for On the Road to '76, a weekly CBS News series begun July 4, 1975, visiting places and events in each of the fifty states for the Bicentennial.

  123. Lester Asheim becomes the School of Library Science's first William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Asheim, a former dean of the University of Chicago's Graduate Library School and former director of two American Library Association offices, came to UNC in 1975 as the library school's first Kenan Professor and held the chair until 1984.

  124. UNC Lineberger Cancer Center is established

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    UNC established a cancer research center in 1975 under founding director Joseph Pagano. Later named for the Lineberger family of Belmont, who helped fund its 1984 building, it earned NCI comprehensive status in 1990 and is North Carolina's only public one.

    Subject: UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center

  125. Protesters stop Klan leader David Duke from speaking in Memorial Hall

    Protest or organizing · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Black students filled the pit of Memorial Hall and kept Ku Klux Klan representative David Duke, invited by the Union Forum, from giving his speech. Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor called the disruption a transgression of one of the university's highest traditions.

    Subject: Memorial Hall

  126. The North Caroliniana Society is chartered

    Founding or opening · University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

    H. G. Jones, William S. Powell and Louis M. Connor Jr. chartered the North Caroliniana Society to promote North Carolina's historical, cultural and literary heritage. Its office is at UNC, and its main beneficiary is the North Carolina Collection.

    People: William S. Powell

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  127. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  128. WUNC-FM returns to the air as an NPR affiliate

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    UNC's radio station WUNC, which had begun FM broadcasting in 1952 and had been silenced by equipment problems in the early 1970s, returned to the air from Chapel Hill on April 3, 1976, as a National Public Radio affiliate.

    Subject: WUNC radio and television

  129. The Totten Center opens at the North Carolina Botanical Garden

    Founding or opening · North Carolina Botanical Garden, Chapel Hill

    The garden's administrative and interpretive building, its first permanent building, opened in 1976. A bequest from the estate of Henry Roland and Adelaide Totten made it possible, and it was named for them.

    People: Addie Williams Totten

    Subject: North Carolina Botanical Garden

  130. The state approves conveying the university's water and wastewater systems to OWASA

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    The Governor and Council of State approved the conveyance of the University of North Carolina's water and wastewater utilities to OWASA under Agreements of Sale and Purchase among the university, the two towns and the authority. The university's Board of Trustees had approved the conveyance on June 11, 1976.

  131. Anson Dorrance coaches the UNC men's soccer team

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Dorrance, a 1974 UNC graduate, coached the Tar Heel men from 1977 through the 1988 season and won 172 games with them.

  132. Brick Odum Village apartments replace Victory Village married-student housing

    Construction or physical change · Manning Drive, UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    The surplus military frame units that the university had set up on Manning Drive after the war as Victory Village lasted until about 1977, when brick married-student apartments called Odum Village took their place.

    Subject: Victory Village and Odum Village

  133. Katherine Kennedy Carmichael retires from the university

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Carmichael retired in 1977, thirty-one years after she became dean of women.

  134. Planning begins for Carrboro’s farmers’ market

    Carrboro

    UNC organizing and town funding efforts supported a formal market.

    Subject: Carrboro Farmers’ Market

  135. Pauli Murray celebrates her first Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill

    Murray, newly ordained an Episcopal priest, celebrated her first Eucharist at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill at the invitation of the rector Peter James Lee, who cited her family's connection to the parish. Her grandmother Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald had been baptized in the same chapel on December 20, 1854.

    Subject: Chapel of the Cross

  136. OWASA commenced operations, taking over the water and sewer systems of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and the university

    Founding or opening · Carrboro

    The three separately owned systems serving the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Carrboro were transferred to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority, which began serving the whole Carrboro and Chapel Hill community as a single public utility that day.

  137. The Institute's former Franklin Street building is dedicated in the names of Albert and Gladys Coates

    Naming or commemoration · former Institute of Government building, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The building the Coateses had given years and money to put up for the Institute, used after 1956 as the Consolidated University's headquarters and later by other programs, was dedicated in their name. Coates had earlier asked the School of Social Work not to name one of its new buildings for him.

    People: Gladys Hall Coates

    Subject: Institute of Government

  138. Andy Griffith speaks at University Day in Memorial Hall

    Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill

    Griffith gave the University Day speech in Memorial Hall and recalled fighting back tears as he approached the building where he had first performed.

    Subject: Memorial Hall

  139. Pauli Murray declines an honorary degree from UNC

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor wrote to Murray on February 10, 1978 offering her an honorary Doctor of Laws at the commencement of May 14, 1978. Murray declined, citing the University's dispute with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare over dismantling segregation and her refusal to share the platform with Governor Jim Hunt.

    People: N. Ferebee Taylor

  140. Roy Williams serves as an assistant coach under Dean Smith at UNC

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Williams spent ten seasons on Dean Smith's UNC men's basketball staff before leaving to become head coach at Kansas.

    People: Dean Smith

  141. UNC hires Willie Scroggs to coach men's lacrosse

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Athletic director Bill Cobey recruited Scroggs, the top assistant at Johns Hopkins, to build the Tar Heel program. His teams went 120 and 37 over 12 seasons and reached the NCAA tournament every year from 1980 through 1990.

  142. Walter Spearman receives the Thomas Jefferson Award

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    Spearman received the Thomas Jefferson Award in 1978, near the end of a teaching career in which students admired his defense of freedom of speech and of the press.

  143. Yonni Chapman leads the North Carolina Memorial Hospital Employees Forum

    Appointment, election or service · North Carolina Memorial Hospital, Chapel Hill

    Chapman, a hematology laboratory technician at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill from 1975 to 1985, served as president of the hospital's Employees Forum from 1978 to 1980 and helped unite coworkers against racial discrimination and unsafe working conditions.

    Part of North Carolina Memorial Hospital and the medical center, from 1952 · 24 events

    Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

  144. Jeff MacNelly wins a second Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

    Award or honor · Richmond

    Jeff MacNelly, a former Daily Tar Heel sports editor and Chapel Hill Weekly cartoonist, won his second Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning while at The Richmond News Leader.

    Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

  145. Edwin M. Yoder Jr. wins the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing

    Award or honor · Washington, D.C.

    Yoder won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing while editorial page editor of the Washington Star, where he worked from 1975 to 1981.

  146. The Tri Delta sorority buys the Coenen house on East Franklin Street

    Property or economic transaction · Coenen house, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Delta Delta Delta bought the house Frederick and Susan Coenen had owned since 1947, when they bought it after Mrs. Adam A. Kluttz died.

  147. UNC starts a varsity women's soccer team with Anson Dorrance as its coach

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    UNC named Dorrance head coach of its new women's soccer program in 1979, and he coached the men's and women's teams at the same time for the next decade.

  148. Joe Straley is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    In the municipal election, newcomer Joe Straley won one of four council seats with 2,796 votes, joining James C. Wallace, R. D. Smith and Jonathan Howes and edging out Joe Herzenberg. He was sworn in for a four-year term in December.

    People: Jonathan Howes

  149. Christopher Fordham serves as chancellor at Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    As chancellor Fordham oversaw a major revision of the undergraduate curriculum, while faculty research funding grew from 56 to 105 million dollars and the endowment from 30 to 130 million.

  150. John Swofford is named UNC athletics director

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Swofford, a former Tar Heel quarterback and defensive back, was named athletics director at 31 and held the post for 17 years, until he became ACC commissioner in 1997.

  151. Northside's Black population falls by about 40 percent

    Statistic or record · Northside, Chapel Hill

    Between 1980 and 2010 Northside's Black population fell by roughly 40 percent as investors bought homes and converted or replaced them as student rentals; over the same period the share of university workers living 10 or more miles away rose above 60 percent.

    Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

  152. William F. Little receives the Thomas Jefferson Award

    Chapel Hill

    Little received the university's Thomas Jefferson Award in 1980.

  153. UNC housekeepers present grievances to the Physical Plant

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Thirty Physical Plant housekeeping assistants gave director Claude Swecker a list of grievances in Berryhill Hall, including the rehiring of Gene Alston, an organizer they said had been fired for organizing. On April 2 Swecker granted two concessions to about sixty housekeepers.

    Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

  154. Karen Shelton becomes head coach of UNC field hockey

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Shelton took over the Tar Heel program in 1981, after finishing at West Chester State in 1979 and spending a year as an assistant coach at Franklin and Marshall. She coached at Chapel Hill for 42 seasons and had 40 winning ones.

  155. Michael Jordan plays his Carolina career in Carmichael Auditorium

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Jordan played all three of his Carolina seasons in Carmichael Auditorium in Chapel Hill and scored in double figures in 90 of his 101 games for UNC. He was Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year and National Player of the Year in 1984.

    People: Dean Smith

    Subject: Carmichael Auditorium (Carmichael Arena)

  156. Philip Meyer returns to UNC as a Kenan Professor of journalism

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    After running market research for Knight Ridder Newspapers from 1978, Meyer came back to Chapel Hill in 1981 with a Kenan Professorship at UNC. He later became the journalism school's first Knight Chair and taught until 2008.

  157. UNC women’s soccer builds a national dynasty

    Storyline · 26 events · Chapel Hill

    Anson Dorrance, the program's head coach from its first varsity season in 1979 through 2023, led the Tar Heels to the 1981 AIAW national title and 21 NCAA titles, and his successor Damon Nahas added the 2024 NCAA title, for 23 national championships in all through the 2025 season. UNC won 22 of the 43 NCAA tournaments held from 1982 through 2024, and its teams went 103 consecutive games without a loss from 1986 to 1990.

    People: Anson Dorrance

  158. UNC women’s soccer wins the AIAW national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the AIAW national championship before the first NCAA women’s soccer tournament.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

    People: Anson Dorrance

  159. Vermont Royster is among the first inductees of UNC's North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    The UNC School of Journalism began its Journalism Hall of Fame in 1981, inducting Vermont Royster, former editor of The Wall Street Journal, with Pete McKnight and Charles Kuralt.

    People: Charles Kuralt

  160. UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1981 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 1981 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Willie Scroggs

  161. Aziz Sancar joins the UNC faculty

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Sancar joined Carolina's faculty in 1982; he became the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the School of Medicine, where his lab mapped how cells repair damaged DNA.

    Subject: UNC School of Medicine

  162. Louis Rubin and Shannon Ravenel start the press that became Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Rubin, then a UNC English professor, and editor Shannon Ravenel formed Bright Leaf Press, Inc., working from a garage at Rubin's home with money for a first printing of 1,500 copies. As Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill it went on to publish Clyde Edgerton, Dori Sanders and Jill McCorkle.

    People: Shannon Ravenel · Clyde Edgerton · Jill McCorkle

  163. The Love Trust is established for the Chapel Hill Public Library

    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill

    A $350,000 estate gift from Cornelia Spencer Love created the Love Trust in 1982. The library foundation has managed it since 1999 and it has given the library more than $2.3 million.

    Subject: Chapel Hill Public Library

  164. The university drops a plan to take over the cemetery and extend it into the east grove

    Protest or organizing · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill

    In 1982 the university proposed taking control of the cemetery from the town and extending it into the wooded grove on its east side for about 185 new graves, citing poor upkeep. Opposition in the neighborhoods east of the campus led it to abandon the plan.

    Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

  165. William E. Leuchtenburg joins the UNC history faculty

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Leuchtenburg came to UNC-Chapel Hill in 1982 and taught for two decades, retiring in 2002 as William Rand Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor.

  166. Yonni Chapman and Fred Battle found the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience

    Founding or opening · Orange County

    Chapman and Fred Battle co-founded the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, which worked on local school politics and on Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.

    People: Fred Battle · Jesse Jackson

  167. UNC men’s basketball wins the 1982 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC defeated Georgetown, 63–62, to win the national title.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Dean Smith · James Worthy · Michael Jordan

  168. UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1982 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 1982 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Willie Scroggs

  169. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1982 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC defeated Central Florida, 2–0, in the national final.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

    People: Anson Dorrance

  170. The Brinkhous-Bullitt Building is named for two pathology chairs

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill

    The University named its 1973 pathology building for Kenneth M. Brinkhous and his predecessor James B. Bullitt, who between them chaired the Department of Pathology from 1913 to 1973.

    People: James Bell Bullitt

  171. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1983 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC defeated George Mason, 4–0, in the national final.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

    People: Anson Dorrance

  172. Annie Dillard reads at UNC during a two-week campus visit

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Dillard spent two weeks in Chapel Hill in March 1983 as a preliminary event of the student-run Fine Arts Festival, giving a poetry reading on March 16 and leading afternoon seminars. The festival's organizer later said she was shocked by the size of the audiences for Dillard and Robert Bly.

  173. Davis Library opens

    Davis Library, Chapel Hill

    The university's new library building, named the Walter Royal Davis Library for the trustee and benefactor, opened in Chapel Hill.

    Subject: UNC Libraries

  174. The UNC-Chapel Hill trustees give Albert Coates the William R. Davie Award

    Award or honor · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The trustees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gave Coates their William R. Davie Award in 1984.

  175. UNC gives John Ehle its Distinguished Alumnus Award

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    The university's 1984 citation honored Ehle as a writer and for his work, beginning as special assistant to Governor Terry Sanford in 1963 and 1964, on the School of the Arts, the School of Science and Mathematics and the Governor's School.

    People: Terry Sanford

  176. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1984 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC defeated Connecticut, 2–0, in the national final.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

    People: Anson Dorrance

  177. Vermont Royster wins the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    Vermont Royster, Kenan professor emeritus in the UNC School of Journalism, won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary for his weekly Wall Street Journal column "Thinking Things Over." It was his second Pulitzer, thirty years after the first.

  178. Jim Heavner urges limits on sales at the UNC Student Stores

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    In a Village Advocate column, Heavner, president of the Village Companies, asked the university to take a hard look at the Student Stores under the Umstead Act, calling them Orange County's largest retail store. Student body president Paul Parker and university officials defended the stores, which funded financial aid.

  179. Albert and Gladys Coates publish The Story of Student Government in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The book rested on research Gladys Coates had begun in the 1930s in the University archives, literary society records and student publications, with chapters by Albert on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and chapters by student leaders on recent decades.

    People: Gladys Hall Coates

  180. Carolyn Kizer wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

    Award or honor

    Kizer won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection Yin: New Poems, more than a decade after she left her UNC post.

  181. Charles Kuralt gives the UNC spring commencement address

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Kuralt, who had edited the Daily Tar Heel as a student, returned to Chapel Hill to deliver the University's spring commencement address in 1985. He told the graduates that the influence of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill moves outward to the farthest corners of the state.

  182. Elfreda A. Chatman joins the faculty of UNC's School of Information and Library Science

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    After a year at Louisiana State University, Chatman taught at UNC's School of Information and Library Science for more than a decade before moving to Florida State University.

  183. Frederick P. Brooks Jr. receives the National Medal of Technology

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    Brooks, Bob Evans and Erich Bloch received the National Medal of Technology for the hardware, architecture and systems engineering of the IBM System/360. Brooks was then Kenan Professor and chairman of UNC's computer science department.

  184. Jeff MacNelly wins a third Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

    Award or honor · Chicago

    Jeff MacNelly, by then the editorial cartoonist of the Chicago Tribune, won his third Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.

  185. Jeff MacNelly is inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame

    Award or honor · Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill

    UNC's School of Journalism inducted Jeff MacNelly, then a two-time Pulitzer winner, and five other journalists into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame at a banquet at the Carolina Inn.

    Subject: The Carolina Inn

  186. C. D. Spangler Jr. serves as president of the UNC System

    Appointment, election or service · UNC System offices, Chapel Hill

    Spangler, a Charlotte businessman and 1954 graduate of the university, succeeded William Friday in 1986 and led the sixteen-campus system for eleven years from its offices in Chapel Hill, fighting to keep tuition low and reforming intercollegiate athletics.

    People: William C. Friday

  187. Elizabeth Spencer teaches in UNC's creative writing program

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Spencer and her husband John Rusher moved from Montreal to Chapel Hill in 1986, and she joined UNC's Creative Writing Program as a visiting writer that fall, teaching until 1992. She lived in Chapel Hill for the rest of her life.

  188. Michael Jordan returns to UNC and earns his geography degree

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Jordan left Carolina with a year of eligibility left to enter the 1984 NBA draft, then returned to the university and earned a bachelor of arts degree in geography in 1986.

  189. UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 1986 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC won the 1986 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Willie Scroggs

  190. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1986 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC defeated Colorado College, 2–0, in the national final.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

    People: Anson Dorrance

  191. Vermont Royster receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom

    Award or honor · Chapel Hill

    Vermont Royster, who had returned to UNC as a professor after retiring from The Wall Street Journal, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1986.

  192. Estes Drive and Burlage Circle residents reach an agreement with Hakan-Corley over the Siena Hotel

    Law, policy or court · East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Attorney Grainger Barrett announced an agreement between residents of the Burlage Circle and Estes Drive neighborhood and developer Hakan-Corley and Associates over the hotel planned for the former Brady's restaurant site.

  193. Six writers read at the Hardback Cafe to raise money against the Shearon Harris nuclear plant

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Joe Ashby Porter, Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Lee Smith, Garrett Epps and Elizabeth Spencer read from their work at a $50-a-plate benefit dinner at the Hardback Cafe, raising over $2,000 for the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris. Organizers turned away 30 ticket requests because of the room's fire-code limit.

    People: Lee Smith · Clyde Edgerton · Jill McCorkle

  194. UNC gives Jeff MacNelly its Distinguished Alumnus Award

    Award or honor · Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill

    At the University Day convocation in Memorial Hall, UNC presented Distinguished Alumnus Awards to cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, Justice Henry E. Frye, Rolfe Neill, Banks C. Talley Jr. and John A. Montgomery.

    Subject: Memorial Hall

  195. Carmichael Residence Hall is dedicated

    Naming or commemoration · UNC campus, Chapel Hill

    The university dedicated a new six-storey residence hall for 486 students, named for Katherine Kennedy Carmichael.

  196. UNC men's soccer wins the ACC title and reaches the NCAA Final Four

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    Under Dorrance the Tar Heel men won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in 1987 and reached the NCAA Final Four.

  197. UNC women’s soccer wins the 1987 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC defeated Massachusetts, 1–0, in the national final.

    Part of UNC women’s soccer national dynasty · 26 events

    People: Anson Dorrance

  198. R. B. House dies in Chapel Hill

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    House died at his home in Chapel Hill and was buried in the local cemetery. He had retired as chancellor in 1957 and taught in the university's English department until 1962.

  199. Frank Wilkinson returns to speak in Manning Hall

    Publication, speech or performance · Manning Hall, UNC

    Wilkinson, then 74, spoke in Manning Hall on FBI surveillance and U.S. policy in Central America at an event sponsored by the Carolina Committee on Central America.

    Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

    People: Frank Wilkinson

  200. Sitterson Hall, the new computer science building, is dedicated on University Day

    Naming or commemoration · Sitterson Hall, Chapel Hill

    The Department of Computer Science moved into its new building over the summer of 1987, and the formal dedication of Sitterson Hall, named for former chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, was held on University Day with Sitterson present and former governor Hunt giving the main address.

  201. The Siena Hotel prepares to open on East Franklin Street

    Founding or opening · 1500 block of East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The 80-room Siena Hotel, built by the Siena Partnership of Joe Hakan and Sam Longiotti as part of a nine-acre development with the Chapel Hill Center, was scheduled to open in late October 1987.

  202. Jonathan Howes is elected mayor of Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Jonathan Howes, director of UNC's Center for Urban and Regional Studies, won the mayoral race with 53 percent of the vote over Julie Andresen and David Lineberger, carrying the student precincts at Greenwood and Country Club. Outgoing mayor James Wallace said the office would be in very good hands.

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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. 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. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. 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 October 2, 2026.

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Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026