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Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–17.Back to highlights
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Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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The student YMCA first takes part in commencement
The 1880 commencement opened with an address to the Young Men's Christian Association by the Rev. F. C. Woodward of Elizabeth City, the association's first part in commencement exercises. By 1884 it met regularly in its own hall in South Building.
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The annual YMCA convention meets at Chapel Hill
The Young Men's Christian Association's annual convention met at Chapel Hill, with sessions in Gerrard Hall, reports from associations around the state and a Sunday talk to townspeople in the Baptist church. Professor J. W. Gore was chosen its president.
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The YMCA takes charge of regular gymnasium training
The trustees accepted a YMCA plan to put gymnasium exercises on a system, with each student paying a small fee, and Lacy L. Little, a recent honor graduate and former football captain trained at Springfield, was hired as trainer.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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John Sprunt Hill endows a fellowship in history
In his 1903 alumni address John Sprunt Hill gave the interest on $4,000 to set up a fellowship in the department of history. The first year's interest was to go toward a YMCA building.
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The campus YMCA building is dedicated
The new Young Men's Christian Association building was formally dedicated on the evening of June 2, 1907, after the YMCA sermon. Professor J. W. Gore presented it for the building committee and Dr. Richard H. Lewis accepted it for the trustees.
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Student YMCA members run eight Sunday schools around Chapel Hill
In 1910-11 the university YMCA organized Sunday schools at Calvander, Clark's Chapel, Williams' Chapel, Ephesus, Mount Carmel, Orange Church, Rankin's Chapel and Smith's Level, enrolling 321 pupils.
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Students start night classes for the Black men who served the dormitories
Asked for help by the young Black workers who cut firewood and carried water in the dormitories, students began teaching them reading and arithmetic in what were called moonlight schools. Under Frank Porter Graham at the campus YMCA the classes grew to take in history, English, writing, debating, home sanitation and the Bible.
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A YMCA lecture series on Black life in the South is held for students
Frank Graham and the campus YMCA organized lectures on 'Negro life in the South.' Professor Harry W. Chase told students that Black citizens were a third of the population but received a sixteenth of school spending, and that what they did not pay in property taxes they made up in fines. A second series was held five years later.
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The Chapel Hill Community Club runs an improvement contest in a Black neighborhood
Susan Moses Graham and the Community Club, with YMCA students under Frank Porter Graham, organized a project in an African American neighborhood at the edge of town, giving prizes for the cleanest house, the cleanest yard and the best fence.
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The university Woman's Association holds a Thanksgiving peace festival
To pay for layettes and other war relief, the Woman's Association planned a Thanksgiving Peace Celebration: a Gypsy Festival moved by rain into the Y.M.C.A., ending with a pageant in Gerrard Hall. It raised $350, $150 of it for the United War Fund.
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Annual benefit football games fund Chapel Hill's Black public health nurse
From 1927 a yearly football game played by Black teams on Fetzer Field, sponsored by the University YMCA, raised money for the public health nurse serving Chapel Hill's Black community, a project run by the Community Club. The 1941 game involved the Orange County Training School and raised $275 net.
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Howard Mumford Jones opens the Bull's Head Bookshop in Murphey Hall
English professor Howard Mumford Jones announced the Bull's Head Book Store, a non-profit shop for modern novels and short stories in his office at 214 Murphey Hall. It later moved to the YMCA building, the ground floor of the university library and, in 1968, the Daniels Building.
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James Weldon Johnson speaks at the YMCA's Institute of Human Relations
Harry F. Comer's weeklong institute, approved by Chase, brought speakers on race, labor and world affairs. Johnson, NAACP executive secretary, spoke in Memorial Hall and met classes. History chair J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton walked out when Howard Odum introduced him as 'Mister Johnson' and protested to Chase, while a Tar Heel editorial by David Donald Carroll welcomed the visit.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Jim Medford is elected president of the campus YMCA
A Daily Tar Heel photograph taken on the steps of South Building shows Jim Medford as the newly elected YMCA president with the other officers chosen in the campus Y election.
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Students for a Democratic Society invites Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker to speak at UNC
The UNC chapter of Students for a Democratic Society invited Frank Wilkinson, who had pleaded the Fifth Amendment when questioned in California about Communist activities, and the Communist theoretician Herbert Aptheker to speak on campus. After the trustees barred both men, Student Government under Paul Dickson, the Daily Tar Heel, the Carolina Forum, the YMCA and YWCA, the Di-Phi and the Carolina Political Union joined SDS in renewing the invitations.
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Eight student groups re-invite Frank Wilkinson under the trustees' new speaker rules
The day after the full board of trustees adopted speaker regulations on February 28, Paul Dickson and leaders of the Carolina Forum, the YMCA, the YWCA, the Daily Tar Heel, the Di-Phi, Students for a Democratic Society and the Carolina Political Union formally told Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson that Wilkinson was invited for March 2 and Aptheker for March 9. Wilkinson spoke to the Duke Bar Association in Durham that day.
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Student leaders ask the chancellor to let Wilkinson and Aptheker speak on campus
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.
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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 1, 2026.
