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Local figure

Fred Battle

Fred Battle graduated from Chapel Hill's segregated Lincoln High School in 1962, took part in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and directed the Hargraves Center from 1970 to 1987. In 2022 the Town Council named the center's indoor basketball court for him.

Source: Chapelboro: Renaming of Gym, Basketball Court Honors Chapel Hill Community Leaders

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1 indexed work is connected with this person.

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Indexed works

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Oral history interview with Fred Battle, January 3, 2001: interview K-0525, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Battle, Fred · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Fred Battle grew up in Chapel Hill under segregation and describes that world in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded January 3, 2001, by Bob Gilgor. He portrays the Black community of his youth as centered on the church and on Lincoln High School, recalls his schooling there, and tells of his college years in Greensboro and the civil rights demonstrations he joined there. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Its title names this person.

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Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 11 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Fred Battle directs the Hargraves Center Fred Battle, a Lincoln High graduate of 1962, directed Chapel Hill's Hargraves Center, the former Negro Community Center on Roberson Street, from 1970 to 1987.Search the index · Chapelboro: Renaming of Gym, Basketball Court Honors Chapel Hill Community Leaders
  2. Yonni Chapman and Fred Battle found the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience Chapman and Fred Battle co-founded the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, which worked on local school politics and on Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns. People: Fred Battle, Jesse JacksonSearch the index · NCpedia: Chapman, John Kenyon (Yonni)
  3. Chapel Hill-Carrboro coalition organizes for the 20th anniversary March on Washington Fred Battle chaired the Chapel Hill-Carrboro 20th Anniversary Coalition, which first met on May 29, 1983, and raised money to send buses from Chapel Hill to the August 27 march for jobs, peace and freedom in Washington. A UNC campus group worked as part of the local coalition.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, July 28, 1983, page 1
  4. James Baldwin speaks in Memorial Hall to open Human Rights Week Novelist James Baldwin opened the Carolina Union and Campus Y's Human Rights Week with a free evening in Memorial Hall. The week's schedule also listed a talk by Fred Battle, local president of the Rainbow Coalition, on being Black in Chapel Hill. People: Fred BattleSearch the index · Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), November 5, 1984, p. 6
  5. Fred Battle serves on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board Fred Battle served on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board of education from 1985 to 1989.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 1, 2006, page 4
  6. James Brittian leads the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP Brittian was president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP from December 1990 until his death at his Carrboro home in November 1993. Fred Battle served as interim president until Gene Hatley took over in February 1994. People: Fred BattleSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, November 22, 1993, page 1 (Local NAACP President Dies of Heart Attack at 48)
  7. Black town workers and UNC housekeepers march down Franklin Street on Labor Day More than 150 supporters of the Black Public Works Association and the UNC Housekeepers Association rallied on the steps of the post office and courthouse and marched down Franklin Street to the Hargraves Center. NAACP branch president Fred Battle opened the day; speakers raised pay, privatized hiring and training. People: Fred Battle, Alan McSurelyBlack Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), September 1995, p. 5
  8. More than 500 march down Franklin Street on King Day for affordable housing More than 500 people rallied at the Chapel Hill post office and followed the Martin Luther King Coalition down Franklin Street past Silent Sam, the old Black business district, Cotton and McDade streets, the Hargraves Center and First Baptist Church. Speakers including Fred Battle of the NAACP and Rep. Verla Insko called for affordable housing; student body president Reyna Walters closed the rally. People: Fred BattleSearch the index · Black Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), March 1999, p. 11
  9. Chapel Hill renames Airport Road as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard At a ceremony beginning outside Town Hall, Airport Road became Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the small Martin Luther King Street became Jackie Robinson Street. Fred Battle, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, had led the push for the change after noticing that the only public facilities named for Black people were in Black neighborhoods. People: Bill Thorpe, Martin Luther King Jr.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, April 29, 2005, page 6
  10. Fred Battle steps down as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP Fred Battle announced his resignation as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP after almost fifteen years in the post, during which he helped revive the branch. First vice president Eugene Farrar was to succeed him on June 1.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, April 14, 2008, page 1
  11. Chapel Hill names the Hargraves Center gym for Nate Davis The Town Council unanimously approved naming the Northside Gym at the Hargraves Community Center for Davis, the center's director for more than three decades, and its indoor court for Fred Battle, director from 1970 to 1987. People: Fred BattleSearch the index · Chapelboro: Renaming of Gym, Basketball Court Honors Chapel Hill Community Leaders

Places in this person’s story

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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.

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Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as Fred Battle, 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.

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Background

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  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Fred Battle 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

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