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Key local figure

John Ehle

John Ehle, a novelist born in Asheville in 1925, graduated from UNC in 1949 and taught in its Department of Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures from 1951 to 1963. His 1965 book The Free Men drew on interviews and on photographs of the civil rights protests in Chapel Hill.

Source: UNC Libraries: John Ehle Papers, 1918-1993 (#04555), finding aid

1925–2018 · Dates from the Library of Congress · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗

6 works about John Ehle are indexed here, as are 4 works by Ehle. 1 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
John Ehle, Yackety Yack, 1948
John Ehle, Yackety Yack, 1948

Life and Orange County connections

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

StorylineChapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–19651960–1965 · 101 events · Nine Lincoln High students began Chapel Hill's sit-ins at Colonial Drug on February 28, 1960. Through 1963 and 1964 Black residents and UNC students picketed, marched and sat in, and held a Holy Week fast at the post office, but the aldermen narrowly rejected a public accommodations ordinance and many businesses stayed segregated until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In April 1965 John Ehle's The Free Men traced the 1963-1964 campaign through three of its leaders, John Dunne, Pat Cusick and Quinton Baker, and the new interracial Chapel Hill-Carrboro Council on Human Relations named a steering committee on housing, education and employment, its leader saying he foresaw no protests like those of 1964. In May James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality, speaking in Chapel Hill for the first time since January 1964, told about 300 people in Memorial Hall that the movement would turn toward the economic upgrading of Black communities and political organizing.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 6 dated events in the chronology →

  1. John Ehle teaches in UNC's radio, television and motion pictures department Ehle, an Asheville native who came to Chapel Hill after infantry service in World War II and graduated from UNC in 1949, taught in the university's Communications Center, later the Department of Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures, from 1951 to 1963. He published his first books while teaching there. Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · UNC Libraries: John Ehle Papers, 1918-1993 (#04555), finding aid
  2. The pageant The Road to Orange opens the county bicentennial week On the opening night of the six-day bicentennial, a local cast of more than 150 presented The Road to Orange, an outdoor drama of the county from 1740 to 1800 acted in pantomime to voices from backstage, on a 200-foot stage at the Hillsboro High School athletic field with seats for 2,000 and fireworks to close. Directed by UNC graduate students Jim Leonard and John Haney with Samuel Selden of the Carolina Playmakers as adviser, it was to play four nights in Hillsboro and two on Fetzer Field in Chapel Hill. People: Samuel Selden, John Ehle, Luther James Phipps Place: Hillsboro High School athletic field, Hillsborough · Also named: Jim Leonard, John Haney · Also mentions: Carolina Playmakers, Fetzer FieldSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 8, 1953, p. 9
  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 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)
  4. John Ehle's The Free Men wins the Mayflower Award John Ehle's The Free Men, his account of the Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrators, received the Mayflower Award for nonfiction, one of North Carolina's top literary prizes. Doris Betts, also a UNC graduate, won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for her novel The Scarlet Thread. People: John Ehle, Doris Betts Place: Chapel Hill (the book's subject)The Daily Tar Heel, December 7, 1965, p. 1
  5. Gov. Jim Hunt gives the University Day address on UNC's 191st birthday Gov. Jim Hunt spoke at University Day in Memorial Hall before about 250 faculty members and some students and alumni, trading praise with UNC President William Friday; Distinguished Alumnus Awards went to John Ehle, James Wesley Silver, Sherwood H. Smith Jr., Katherine Robinson Everett and Sarah Taylor Morrow. People: William C. Friday, John Ehle Place: Memorial Hall, University, Chapel Hill · Also named: Jim Hunt, Sarah Taylor MorrowSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, October 17, 1984, p. 1
  6. UNC gives John Ehle its Distinguished Alumnus Award The university's 1984 citation, presented at the University Day ceremony in Memorial Hall on October 12, 1984, honored Ehle as a writer and for his work, beginning as special assistant to Governor Terry Sanford in 1963 and 1964, on the School of the Arts, the School of Science and Mathematics and the Governor's School. People: Terry Sanford Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Memorial HallSearch the index · UNC Faculty Governance: Distinguished Alumna and Alumnus Award, past recipients · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, October 17, 1984, p. 1

People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as John Ehle, 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.

Indexed works

Works about or by John Ehle. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.

By John Ehle

Move Over, Mountain

Ehle, John · 1957 · W. Morrow

John Ehle's first novel, published in 1957, follows a Black family and their neighbors in a small North Carolina town. At the time it was called the first novel by a white writer to portray African Americans without stereotype; segregated bookstores and libraries declined to carry it, and it had a single American printing before going out of print. This is a later electronic edition of 275 pages. Ehle, a Carolina graduate, was teaching at the university in Chapel Hill when the book appeared.

✓ Held at OCPL NC State NC Cardinal Library of Congress

The freemen.

Ehle, John · 1965 · Harper & Row

John Ehle's 1965 book on African Americans and the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill. Published by Harper and Row, 340 pages with illustrations.

NC Cardinal

The road to Orange : a bi-centennial pageant for Orange County, North Carolina

Ehle, John, 1925-2018 · 1953 · John Ehle?

John Ehle wrote this historical pageant for the Orange County bicentennial, a script of fifty-three leaves staging scenes from the county's past for the 1953 observance. Orange County was created in 1752, and the pageant marked two hundred years of its history.

UNC

John Ehle papers, 1918-1993.

Ehle, John, 1925-2018 · 1918

Papers of the novelist John Ehle (1925-2018), roughly 40,800 items filling 118.5 linear feet and dating from 1918 to 1993, in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4555. Topics include his writing and his public work: civil rights in North Carolina and in Chapel Hill, the North Carolina School of the Arts, the School of Science and Mathematics, Penland School of Crafts, the Ford Foundation and Terry Sanford.

UNC

About John Ehle

The Free Men

Ehle, Jr., John Marsden · 1965

John Ehle's account of the civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill in 1963 and 1964 and the young people who led them, first published by Harper & Row in 1965. This reprint from Lewisville, North Carolina adds an afterword by Wayne King. Civil rights and race relations in Chapel Hill are its subjects. 340 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Included because: Listed as its creator.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 323.4 EHL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress UNCSA CH Historical Society

John B. Dunne papers, 1958-1965; 1983-1984.

Dunne, John B. · 1958

Civil rights work fills the John B. Dunne papers, dated 1958 to 1965 and 1983 to 1984, five hundred items in half a linear foot, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4391. Topics include civil disobedience and the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill and in Alabama, the political activity of college students at the university, and the Choate School, with John Ehle and Walter Spearman named.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Ehle, John, 1925-2018.

UNC

Anne Queen papers, 1930-1985.

Queen, Anne, 1911-2005 · 1930

Anne Queen (1911-2005) was a university employee connected with the Campus Y and the YMCA-YWCA at Chapel Hill. Her papers, 1930 to 1985, amount to some 17,200 items in 26 linear feet in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 5214. Political cartoons are among the genres. Topics include the American Friends Service Committee, the Speaker Ban Law, Yale Divinity School, William C. Friday, Terry Sanford, Allard Lowenstein and John Ehle.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Ehle, John, 1925-2018.

UNC

Charles Phillips Russell papers, 1861-1974.

Russell, Phillips, 1884-1974 · 1861

Phillips Russell (1884-1974) taught journalism at the University of North Carolina and wrote biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Paul Jones. His papers, 7,800 items in fourteen linear feet covering 1861 to 1974, are part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4004. Topics include his publishers, his teaching, the writer Lucy Phillips Russell, and colleagues such as Henry Horace Williams and John Ehle.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Ehle, John, 1925-2018.

UNC

Ehle, John (Chapel Hill Historical Society vertical file)

Novelist John Ehle is the subject of the newspaper clippings in this undated folder, from box 3 of the Individuals and Families series of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's vertical files.

Included because: Their name appears in the record.

CH Historical Society

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this person. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 323.4 EHL The Free Men Ehle, John · 1965

    John Ehle's account of the civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill in 1963 and 1964 and the young people who led them, first published by Harper & Row in 1965. This reprint from Lewisville, North Carolina adds an afterword by Wayne King. Civil rights and race relations in Chapel Hill are its subjects. 340 pages with illustrations and portraits.

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, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

  • Fetzer Field University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here

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Research sources

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Background

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Books about John Ehle

Books by John Ehle

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Photographs, papers, and newspapers

Historical records and collections

Catalog searches use the Library of Congress name heading: Ehle, John, 1925-2018. Historical-record searches use the person’s name and may include namesakes. Links open in a new tab.

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Picture: John Ehle, Yackety Yack, 1948. Public domain. Yackety Yack, 1948 (University of North Carolina yearbook); via the Internet Archive

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