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Local figure

Charlotte Adams

Charlotte Adams was a founder and former president of the Chapel Hill branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She organized literacy classes during the Depression, marched on civil rights picket lines in the 1960s, and stood outside the Chapel Hill post office every Wednesday from 1967 through 1973 against the Vietnam War.

Source: Duke University Libraries, Sallie Bingham Center: Women at the Center newsletter, "WILPF: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally"

1902–2005 · Dates from the Library of Congress · Library of Congress authority record ↗

2 works about Charlotte Adams are indexed here.

Search these 2 works Research sources View indexed works ↓

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 6 dated events in the chronology →

  1. A Chapel Hill branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom is founded Charlotte Adams founded a Chapel Hill branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The branch is now called WILPF Triangle.Search the index · Civil Rights Digital Library: Adams, Charlotte, 1903?-2005
  2. Chapel Hill group pledges gifts to the UN in place of fallout shelters About two dozen ministers, lay people and teachers who had met at the Friends Meeting House issued a statement calling the civil defense shelter program a source of false security and pledging yearly gifts to UN agencies adding up to the cost of a family shelter. They invited others to sign. People: Charlotte AdamsSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 12, 1961, p. 3
  3. Wednesday vigils against the Vietnam War at the Chapel Hill post office Every Wednesday from 1967 through 1973, Charlotte Adams and fellow protesters of the Chapel Hill branch of WILPF stood in silent vigil in front of the Chapel Hill post office against U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.Search the index · Duke University Libraries, Sallie Bingham Center: Women at the Center newsletter, "WILPF: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally"
  4. Bill Thorpe petitions the council to name the post office plaza for local activists Council member Bill Thorpe presented a petition to rename the Franklin Street post office plaza for Charlotte Adams and Joe and Lucy Straley, an idea born at Joe Straley's memorial service. The council chose to hold a public hearing, and its naming committee proposed naming the plaza for an ideal with plaques for local peace and justice activists. People: Joe Straley, Lucy Straley, Charlotte Adams, Diana McDuffee, Joseph A. HerzenbergSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, March 29, 2006, p. 3
  5. Chapel Hill names the post office plaza Peace and Justice Plaza The Town Council named the space in front of the Franklin Street post office Peace and Justice Plaza, after a petition to honor Charlotte Adams and Joe and Lucy Straley. Lucy Straley, then 92, told the Daily Tar Heel the plaza had long been the couple's main backdrop for protest. People: Joe Straley, Bill Thorpe, Charlotte AdamsSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 13, 2007, p. 3
  6. Chapel Hill dedicates the Peace and Justice Plaza marker The town unveiled a granite marker at Peace and Justice Plaza, in front of the old post office on Franklin Street, naming nine local activists: Charlotte Adams, Hank Anderson, James Brittian, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley and Gloria Williams. The Town Council had named the plaza in 2006 and set criteria for later honorees. People: James Brittian, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley, Gloria Williams, Charlotte Adams, Joseph A. Herzenberg, Sally GreeneSearch the index · OrangePolitics: Sally Greene, Peace and protest, justice and injustice: marking Chapel Hill's sacred space (September 19, 2009) · Also: Town of Chapel Hill

Indexed works

Works about or by Charlotte Adams. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

Oral history interview with Igal Roodenko, April 11, 1974 interview B-0010, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).

Roodenko, Igal · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Southern Oral History Program group interview recorded April 11, 1974, with pacifist and civil rights worker Igal Roodenko joined by Joseph Felmet (1921-1994) and Charlotte Adams, questioned by Jacquelyn Hall and Jerry Wingate over about two and a quarter hours. Roodenko, born in New York in 1917 to immigrant parents, recalls the dilemma pacifists faced during the Second World War, conscientious objection, and Congress of Racial Equality activism against segregated transportation; the interview also covers chain gangs in North Carolina and civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill. Electronic edition, UNC Library, 2007.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Adams, Charlotte, 1902-2005 -- Interviews.

NC Cardinal UNC

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Triangle Branch records,

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom · 1939

Papers of the Triangle Branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, founded by Charlotte Adams in 1935 as the Chapel Hill Branch and renamed in 2002. The eight linear feet run from 1939 to 2025: administrative files, subject files, publications, photographs, scrapbooks and audiovisual material. Chairs Charlotte Adams and Vivian Plonsey figure prominently, along with disarmament, nuclear arms, human rights and the Orange County Peace Coalition.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Duke record: Adams, Charlotte, 1902-2005.

Duke

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

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Research sources

Sources and research tools for this person. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further. Research guide: Trace a family through historical records.

Records of the time

Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Charlotte Adams Library card Search NC LIVE for this subject and Orange County. You can change the search terms. Sign in through your North Carolina library to access the materials.
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

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