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Herbert Aptheker, a radical historian, was one of the two banned speakers UNC student leaders invited to Chapel Hill in March 1966. He addressed students beside the campus wall after the talks were kept off campus, and the students' lawsuit overturned the Speaker Ban in 1968.
Source: Documenting the American South: Speaker Ban Monument, UNC (Chapel Hill)
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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.
Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 11 events
People: Frank Wilkinson · Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker
Meeting in Governor Dan K. Moore's office in Raleigh, the executive committee of the UNC board of trustees voted 8 to 3 to deny university facilities to Aptheker and Wilkinson and suspended all other invitations covered by the speaker ban law until the full board adopted rules. Earlier that day more than 800 students and faculty at a Memorial Hall meeting had backed Aptheker's right to speak.
People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker
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.
People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker · 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
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 · 11 events
People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker
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 · 11 events
People: Paul Dickson III · Herbert Aptheker
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 · 11 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
Twenty-five years after he was kept off campus, Aptheker spoke to students and faculty in Greenlaw Hall in a visit arranged by anthropology professor Don Nonini.
Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 11 events
People: Herbert Aptheker
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