Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Local figure

Quinton Baker

Quinton Baker was a student at North Carolina College in Durham, president of the state NAACP Youth Council and an organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality. In 1963 Floyd McKissick sent him to Chapel Hill to teach nonviolence and demonstration tactics to local activists. Around New Year's Day 1964 he was among the sit-in demonstrators doused with ammonia at the Rock Pile, a segregated grocery on the Durham Road.

Source: The Daily Tar Heel, January 7, 1964

1 indexed work is connected with this person.

Search this work Research sources View indexed works ↓

Indexed works

Works in the index that concern this person directly, or were written by them. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it; background reading with wider context sits further down.

Oral history interview with Quinton E. Baker, February 23, 2002: interview K-0838, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Baker, Quinton E. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Quinton E. Baker, a Black gay man who took part in the Chapel Hill civil rights protests of the 1960s, was interviewed by Chris McGinnis in February 2002. He describes growing up under segregation with little contact with white people, an early awareness of his sexuality, and the way race and sexual identity together shaped his activism as a college student. About two and a half hours; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2008, through Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Listed as its creator.

NC Cardinal UNC

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 3 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Floyd McKissick sends organizers to Chapel Hill and defends arrested demonstrators As head of CORE's Durham office, McKissick sent organizer Quinton Baker to Chapel Hill in 1963 to teach nonviolence and demonstration tactics, and he acted as attorney for many demonstrators arrested there. Letters to him in 1964 include one written from the Orange County jail. People: John Dunne, Quinton BakerSearch the index · UNC Libraries: I Raised My Hand to Volunteer, Documents and Photographs
  2. Sit-in demonstrators at the Rock Pile are doused with ammonia Around New Year's Day 1964, sit-in demonstrators at the Rock Pile, Carlton Mize's segregated grocery on the Durham Road, were doused with ammonia and bleach water. Seven were treated for burns, among them NAACP youth leader Quinton Baker; four were arrested, and thirteen more were arrested at a second sit-in there the next day, when five more needed treatment. People: John Dunne, Quinton BakerDigitalNC: Daily Tar Heel, January 7, 1964, p. 1
  3. Harper and Row publishes John Ehle's The Free Men, an account of the Chapel Hill protests Ehle's nonfiction book traced the 1963–1964 civil rights campaign in Chapel Hill through three of its leaders, John Dunne, Pat Cusick and Quinton Baker, from the first pickets at a cafe to mass arrests and long prison sentences. People: Pat Cusick, John Dunne, Quinton BakerSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Carolina Times, March 27, 1965, page 9 (John Ehle's Book, The Free Men, to Be Published by Harper and Row)

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 and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

  • The Rock Pile Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 1 event here

All places and the county map →

Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as Quinton Baker, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Research sources

Resources picked for this person, each with a note on what it holds. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further.

Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Quinton Baker Library card An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
  • 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

Local help

Search further

Ready-made searches in other catalogs and collections. Results are not checked against this person.

Books about Quinton Baker

More catalogs that show where copies are

Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

Searched by name. The catalogs give no dates for this person, so results may include other people with the same name. The historical records searches look for the name as written, so they can turn up other people with the same name. Each link opens that catalog’s own results in a new tab. The Friends have not reviewed what they return.

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026