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Sixty Years of Struggle: A Documented History of Housekeepers at U.N.C. (1996).Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–11.Back to highlights
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Professor W. B. Sanders urges President Graham to give the Black janitors paid vacations
Sanders wrote that the university preached fair dealing on race while giving its janitors no vacation at all, and proposed two weeks with pay. By 1940 the Janitors' Association counted a paid week of vacation among its gains.
People: Frank Porter Graham
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The Janitors' Association puts out the first issue of its newsletter
The Voice of the Janitors' Association set out the group's aims and history and listed officers elected on April 2, 1940. It also reported banquets held at the Orange County Training School and gifts to that school and to Sedalia.
People: Kennon Cheek
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University laundry workers reject a piece-work plan and demand a wage increase
Meeting by shifts, the laundry workers turned down the university's offer of piece rates with no assured raise. Their union wrote that it would take the matter to President Graham within a week if nothing changed.
People: Rebecca Clark
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CIO Local 403 demands vacations for janitors and equal pay for women campus workers
The union protested a ruling that cut vacations for hourly janitors and asked for ten days of sick leave for laundry workers. It also asked that women in campus buildings be paid the same as men for nearly the same work.
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Black laundry workers take complaints of racial pay discrimination to the Fair Employment Practice Committee
Press operators Bessie Hargraves and Etta Guthrie said white folders earned more because of race. At President Graham's request the personnel officer investigated, and his memo denied that race set the pay.
People: Frank Porter Graham
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University laundry workers stage a sit-down strike
The workers, some earning thirty-five cents an hour, stopped work on their own and set a further strike for October 14. Student Martin Watkins reported it to President Graham and to trustee Josephus Daniels.
People: Frank Porter Graham · Josephus Daniels
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The State Personnel Department begins classifying the university's lowest-paid jobs
Under the State Personnel Act of 1949, the survey started with the lowest-paid categories. The chancellor and business manager told supervisors to head off rumors and fears among workers and to hold back raises until it was done.
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The university counts its Black employees after federal contracts bar job discrimination
Asked by the chancellor and business manager, the personnel office surveyed each department and found 853 Black workers, most of them in low-paid unskilled jobs.
Subject: South Building
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Faculty members press Chancellor Sharp after a pellet is fired into Kenan Dormitory
The shot came on the day of a campus rally, and the campus police chief called it minor. The professors asked whether the university's hiring and admissions practices favored white people and whether fraternities had discriminatory clauses.
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A Committee of Janitors asks the university for a hearing on treatment by supervisors
The janitors said they did not mind the work but wanted supervisors to speak to them with respect, and they listed grievances over leave and vacations. In late June Professor H. M. Blaylock had written Chancellor Paul F. Sharp about poor treatment, low pay and blocked promotions for Black employees.
People: Paul F. Sharp
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The university puts its hourly workers on a forty-hour week
Business officers had warned in 1957 that the change would come. The packet says the university finally made it in 1969.
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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 4, 2026.
