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Harry F. Comer

Harry F. Comer was secretary of the University YMCA in Chapel Hill for 26 years until he retired in 1947. He founded its Institute of Human Relations in 1927, and during the Second World War he chaired the University housing bureau and ran the USO recreation center.

Source: DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill), September 26, 1947, p. 2

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Chapel Hill’s nurse for Black residents, 1924–19411924–1941 · 29 events · Nurse A. D. Compton carried most of the health work among Chapel Hill's Black residents from 1924, with her salary paid from tuberculosis-seal money, the town, the Red Cross and Black residents. She visited homes, examined schoolchildren, gave typhoid inoculations and held baby clinics. Her support was often in doubt: by December 1927 the Red Cross could no longer give its share, Black citizens organized a canvass for theirs in 1929, and in 1930 the tuberculosis fund could pledge support only until June. From 1927 a yearly football game, run by the University YMCA, raised money for her. In 1939 she wrote in the Weekly of the change from wells and privies to sewer, town water and clinics. Scouting in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1925–19351925–1935 · Chapel Hill hosted what the Weekly called the national council's first patrol leaders' training camp in 1925, when about 125 picked North Carolina Scouts camped on Emerson Field. By 1932 thirty-six men had set up a Chapel Hill district committee under Joseph Hyde Pratt to equip and house the troops of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. In 1933 it reported that the Carrboro troop had grown and had a three-room house, that the Chapel Hill troop had 47 members, and that plans were under way for a troop for Black boys. In December 1935 a new district council sought student leaders for the Carrboro troop and heard a report on the Black troop. The University's Human Relations Institutes, 1927–19451927–1945 · A weeklong institute in March 1927, arranged by Harry F. Comer of the YMCA, brought James Weldon Johnson, executive secretary of the NAACP, and other speakers on race, labor and world affairs to the University. History chair J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton walked out when Howard Odum introduced Johnson as 'Mister Johnson' and protested to Chase, while a Tar Heel editorial welcomed the visit. The third quadrennial Human Relations Institute, in 1935, brought a week of lectures on government, industry, race and religion, and the Weekly called it a great success. Comer's 1945 institute took the theme 'The Prices of Peace,' with Senator J. William Fulbright giving the Weil lectures on America and world organization.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 19 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Harry F. Comer becomes secretary of the University YMCA Harry F. Comer, formerly YMCA secretary at Georgia Tech and for seven years a state secretary in Tennessee, took charge of the University YMCA at Chapel Hill. The Tar Heel said he meant to make his home in Chapel Hill permanently.Search the index · The Tar Heel, October 4, 1921, p. 2
  2. Alfred Lawrence helps found the Chapel Hill School of Religion Lawrence took part in organizing the Chapel Hill School of Religion, a venture of the town's churches and the Y.M.C.A. to teach the Bible to University students without University credit. He was one of its six incorporators, five village ministers and Y.M.C.A. secretary H. F. Comer, when the state chartered it in the week of May 17, 1926, and its first teacher, Rev. Mims Thornburgh Workman of Little Rock, began classes about September 17, 1926. His papers hold material on it from 1925 and 1926. People: Harry F. ComerIn the index: School of Religion (Chapel Hill, N.C.) · UNC Libraries: Alfred Stratton Lawrence Papers, 1914-1944 · Also: Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone; Chapel Hill Weekly, May 21, 1926, p. 3; Chapel Hill Weekly, August 13, 1926, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, September 10, 1926, p. 3
  3. Annual benefit football games fund Chapel Hill's Black public health nurse From 1927 a yearly football game between Black teams, 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, played on Fetzer Field, involved the Orange County Training School and raised $275 net. People: Harry F. ComerThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 21, 1941, p. 1 (Negro Game Next Week)
  4. 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. People: Howard W. Odum, J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Harry F. ComerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), pp. 362-364
  5. The United States Marine Band plays in Kenan Stadium and the Tin Can Brought by the Y.M.C.A., the Marine Band under Capt. Taylor Branson gave an afternoon concert in Kenan Stadium to about 2,000 schoolchildren and college students and an evening concert in the Tin Can, moved there because Memorial Hall was closed. Editor Louis Graves wrote a week later that both audiences had been small. People: Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 15, 1929, p. 1
  6. University students raise about $160 for the county's poor At the students' own suggestion, the Y.M.C.A. cabinet under Harry F. Comer canvassed the dormitories and fraternity houses after hearing welfare officer George H. Lawrence describe need in the county, and collected about $160 for Orange County relief. People: George H. Lawrence, Harry F. ComerThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 28, 1930, p. 1
  7. A new Boy Scout district council for Chapel Hill and Carrboro holds its first meeting The newly organized district council, chaired by Harold D. Meyer, met in his office and debated leaving the Cherokee Council for the Occoneechee Council. It agreed to ask the University Y.M.C.A. for students to lead the Carrboro troop, which lacked leadership; Harry F. Comer reported on the Black troop, and the Movie Guild gave $50 to renovate the Scout hut. People: Harold D. Meyer, Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 13, 1935, p. 2
  8. University students hold an anti-war demonstration On the morning of Wednesday, April 22, 1936 students held an anti-war rally on the south side of South Building with a band, loud-speakers and placards, three of them made up as maimed veterans under the sign 'The Army Builds Men'. Rain moved the meeting to Memorial Hall, where Harry F. Comer, Dick Whitten of Commonwealth College and student speakers addressed an audience filling more than half the main floor. People: Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, April 24, 1936, p. 1
  9. The fourth Human Relations Institute brings national speakers to Chapel Hill The fourth Human Relations Institute, arranged by Harry F. Comer of the YMCA, ran from Easter Sunday through the following week, with University classes moved half an hour earlier to give it a morning hour. Speakers included Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, Senator Bailey, John G. Winant, former Cuban president Ramon Grau San Martin, James Weldon Johnson, Countess Alexandra Tolstoy and John A. Rice; attendance at the meetings came to about 15,000, and the committee set the next Institute two years later instead of in 1941. People: Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, April 9, 1937, p. 8
  10. The University awards 410 student self-help jobs, 210 of them under the NYA The University's self-help committee passed on 1,490 applications and awarded campus jobs to 410 students for 1937-38, 210 of them paid by the National Youth Administration at an average of $15 a month. A ruling from Washington cut the number of NYA jobs from the year before. People: Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 20, 1937, p. 5
  11. YMCA secretary Harry Comer is named Chapel Hill's Most Valuable Citizen The Carolina Theatre's annual trophy for Chapel Hill's Most Valuable Citizen of 1938 went to Harry F. Comer, secretary of the University YMCA, at a presentation in the theatre. He was chosen by a committee of Mrs. Isaac Manning (chairman), Mrs. Irene Lee, Dr. S. A. Nathan, P. L. Burch and F. O. Bowman. People: Frederick O. Bowman, Peter L. Burch, Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, January 6, 1939, p. 1
  12. A Training School football game raises $200 for Chapel Hill's Black community nurse The Orange County Training School beat the Creecy school of Rich Square on Fetzer Field in a benefit game that netted $200 for the nurse who served the Black residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Harry Comer of the Y.M.C.A., which managed the game, said it was the best result since the first such game eleven years earlier. People: Harry F. ComerThe Chapel Hill Weekly, December 6, 1940, p. 1
Show all 19 dated events
  1. Chapel Hill raises money for Greek war relief, led by its Greek-born residents Nineteen Greek-born residents of Chapel Hill met and gave more than $350 to start a fund for widows, orphans and bombed-out families in Greece, and a citizens' committee followed with a "take a Greek to dinner" collection in restaurants and dormitories. By December 20 the committee had cabled $550 to the Greek Red Cross in Athens. People: W. E. Thompson, Harry F. Comer, John M. Foushee, E. Carrington SmithSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 13, 1940, p. 1
  2. University holds its sixth Human Relations Institute on the war and democracy The University's sixth Human Relations Institute, directed by Harry Comer, brought Reinhold Niebuhr, Herbert Agar of the Louisville Courier-Journal, who gave the three Weil lectures, former Senator E. W. Gibson of the Committee to Defend America, T. Z. Koo, Clarence Streit of Union Now, the Countess of Listowel, and Clyde Miller of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. The University moved its first class to 8 o'clock to free an hour each morning for the speakers. People: Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, April 11, 1941, p. 1
  3. Chapel Hill opens a Soldiers' Center in the Graham Memorial for troops on the Carolina maneuvers A University and village committee headed by Harry F. Comer set up a Soldiers' Center in the Graham Memorial, with its own telephone, to match visiting soldiers with families offering meals, drives and beds. On the first weekend, October 11 and 12, four to five thousand soldiers came for the Fordham game and more than 600 stayed the night, 300 of them in the Tin Can and others in Graham dormitory, the Institute of Government building, fraternity houses and village homes. People: Harry F. Comer, John M. FousheeThe Chapel Hill Weekly, October 10, 1941, p. 1
  4. Benefit football game raises $275 for the Black public health nurse fund The Black school's football game against Lexington on Fetzer Field, sponsored by the University YMCA, cleared $275 for the public health nurse fund for Black residents, $50 more than the year before. YMCA secretary Harry Comer said it drew the biggest crowd since the games began in 1927, and members of the University Janitors Association sold $160 of the 25-cent tickets. People: Harry F. ComerThe Chapel Hill Weekly, December 5, 1941, p. 1
  5. The Oakwood and Rogerson Drive colonies on the Raleigh road reach 24 homes Oakwood, a University employees' cooperative housing colony begun about three years earlier on the Raleigh road, had 16 houses costing about $3,500 to $8,500, and the adjoining Rogerson Drive colony had 8 more, all on Chapel Hill water and electricity though outside the town limits. The Weekly urged more such developments as Chapel Hill's war-crowded housing left about 100 households on the University's waiting list. People: Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 12, 1943, p. 2
  6. The biennial Human Relations Institute opens at the University The University's biennial Human Relations Institute, arranged by YMCA secretary Harry F. Comer with student and faculty committees, opened with Eduard Heimann of the New School for Social Research and Assistant Attorney General Wendell Berge. Under the theme 'The Prices of Peace' it ran through April 10, with Morris Ernst of the American Civil Liberties Union speaking on prejudice and Senator J. William Fulbright giving the Weil lectures on America and world organization. People: Harry F. ComerSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 5, 1945, p. 1
  7. Harry F. Comer retires as secretary of the University YMCA Harry F. Comer stepped down after 26 years as secretary of the University YMCA. The Daily Tar Heel credited him with founding the Institute of Human Relations in 1927 and with wartime work as chairman of the housing bureau and head of the USO recreation center. People: Frank Porter Graham, R. B. HouseSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 26, 1947, p. 2

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