John Dunne

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 10 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1963–1964 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: Floyd B. McKissick, John Dunne, Quinton Baker Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Orange County jailSearch the index · UNC Libraries: I Raised My Hand to Volunteer, Documents and Photographs
2. By December 1963 John Dunne gives up his Morehead scholarship to work in the Chapel Hill movement By December 1963 John Dunne had left his studies, given up his Morehead scholarship, which he objected to as segregationist, and turned to the Freedom Movement in Chapel Hill full time. He joined the Congress of Racial Equality and led protests at segregated restaurants. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · UNC Libraries: John B. Dunne Papers (#4391), 1943-1984
3. about New Year's Day, 1964 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 Baker Place: Rock Pile, Durham Road (1501 East Franklin Street), Chapel Hill · Also named: Carlton MizeThe Daily Tar Heel, January 7, 1964, p. 1 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 23, 1964, p. 2
4. February 14, 1964 About 50 Lincoln High pupils walk out in a boycott calling for one merged high school On Friday, February 14, about 50 pupils walked out of Chapel Hill's all-Black Lincoln High School in a boycott sponsored by the Chapel Hill Freedom Committee, whose chairman John Dunne called Lincoln inferior and asked that it be merged with Chapel Hill Senior High. Superintendent Howard Thompson denied the charge point by point, and by the following Monday 25 pupils were still out. People: John Dunne Place: Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill · Also named: Howard ThompsonThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 20, 1964, p. 5
5. March 22, 1964 The Holy Week fast began on the Franklin Street post office lawn At sunrise on Palm Sunday, Freedom Committee members John Dunne, Pat Cusick, James Foushee and the Rev. LeVert Taylor began an eight-day, water-only fast on the grounds of the Chapel Hill post office, planned to last through Easter. The fast was aimed at the Board of Aldermen, and a fifth faster joined within two days. People: John Dunne Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Pat Cusick, James Foushee · Also mentions: Chapel Hill post officeThe Daily Tar Heel, March 22, 1964, p. 1
6. March 29, 1964 The Holy Week fast ends on Easter Sunday and the Rev. LaVert Taylor is hospitalized The five fasters finished their eight-day water-only fast in front of the post office on Easter Sunday. The Rev. LaVert Taylor of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was admitted to Memorial Hospital with an upset stomach afterward; James Foushee had been treated there during the fast and released. People: Pat Cusick, John Dunne Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: LaVert Taylor, James Foushee · Also mentions: Memorial HospitalThe Daily Tar Heel, April 4, 1964, p. 1
7. April 23 to 24, 1964 Judge Mallard sentences fasters Pat Cusick and John Dunne to a year in jail In Orange County Superior Court at Hillsborough, Judge Raymond B. Mallard gave Pat Cusick a year in jail on April 23 and John Dunne twelve months on April 24 for the February street-blocking demonstrations, among a dozen active sentences and about 100 suspended ones that stripped the Chapel Hill movement of its leaders four weeks after the fast. People: Pat Cusick, John Dunne Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Raymond B. MallardThe Daily Tar Heel, April 24, 1964, p. 1
8. by August 13, 1964 (Cusick on August 11) Pat Cusick, John Dunne and Rosemary Ezra are paroled from their one-year sentences Chapel Hill demonstration leaders Pat Cusick, John Dunne and Rosemary Ezra were paroled after serving a quarter of the one-year sentences given them for misdemeanors in the 1963-64 protests. Cusick left Burke County Prison Camp on August 11 and went to a job in Boston, according to his Chapel Hill friends. People: Pat Cusick, John Dunne Place: Burke County Prison Camp (Cusick); Chapel Hill · Also named: Rosemary EzraThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 13, 1964, p. 1
9. April 1965 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: John Ehle, Pat Cusick, John Dunne, Quinton Baker Place: Chapel HillSearch 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)
10. December 29, 1982 John Dunne, a leader of the Chapel Hill civil-rights movement, dies at 39 John Dunne, the former Morehead scholar who helped lead the 1963 and 1964 sit-ins, pickets and the fast at the Chapel Hill post office against segregated restaurants, died at 39 in Norwich, Vermont. Council member Joe Straley and law professor Daniel Pollitt, who recalled 600 to 700 students marching most evenings and Dunne's jailing and banishment from the state, were to speak at a memorial service at the Community Church on January 21, 1983. People: John Dunne, Joe Straley Place: Norwich, Vermont · Also named: Daniel Pollitt · Also mentions: Chapel Hill post officeThe Daily Tar Heel, January 21, 1983, p. 3