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Joseph A. Felmet

Joseph A. Felmet of Asheville, a white UNC graduate, was one of four men, two Black and two white, arrested by Chapel Hill police in April 1947 after they sat together at the front of a Greensboro-bound bus and refused to move.

Source: DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, April 15, 1947, page 1

Also found in catalogs as Joseph Felmet.

1 indexed record is connected with this person.

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Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Oral history interview with Igal Roodenko, April 11, 1974 interview B-0010, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).

Roodenko, Igal · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Igal Roodenko was born to first-generation immigrants in New York City in 1917. Throughout the 1930s, Roodenko was drawn to leftist politics and pacifism. He describes the internal dilemma that he and other pacifists fa…

NC Cardinal

In the chronology

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  1. UNC junior Joe Felmet is elected executive secretary of the campus American Student Union The Daily Tar Heel reported that Felmet, a junior from Asheville who had been active in the American Student Union for two years, was elected unanimously as ex…Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, February 16, 1941, page 2
  2. Journey of Reconciliation comes to Chapel Hill Interracial riders testing segregation on interstate buses reached Chapel Hill on April 12, 1947. The next day police arrested four of them at the bus station … People: Bayard Rustin, George Houser, Igal Roodenko, Joseph A. FelmetTown of Chapel Hill: Information packet for Freedom Riders resolution (Council agenda, January 28, 2008)
  3. Joseph Felmet is tried in Chapel Hill Recorder's Court on the bus seating charge and sentenced to the roads Felmet's trial, put off in May while Bayard Rustin and Igal Roodenko were tried, was held in Chapel Hill Recorder's Court on June 24, 1947. He was sentenced to…Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, December 4, 1948, page 4
  4. An Orange County Superior Court jury convicts Felmet and the other three Chapel Hill bus defendants A jury found Andrew S. Johnson, Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko and Joseph Felmet guilty of breaking the bus seating law, and Judge Chester Morris sentenced each …Search the index · DigitalNC: The News of Orange County, March 25, 1948, page 1
  5. North Carolina Supreme Court upholds the convictions of Felmet and the other Chapel Hill bus riders In State v. Johnson the court affirmed the Orange County convictions, holding that the state seating statutes applied unless the riders proved they were inters…Search the index · Caselaw Access Project: State v. Johnson, 229 N.C. 701 (1949)
  6. Journey of Reconciliation convictions are vacated On June 17, 2022, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour vacated the disorderly conduct convictions of Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko, Andrew Johnson a… People: Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko, Andrew Johnson (Journey of Reconciliation), Joseph A. FelmetOrange County, NC: Journey of Reconciliation

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Background reading at OCPL

Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this person; they may not discuss the Orange County person directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Triumph of Good Will: How Terry Sanford Beat A Champion of Segregation and Reshaped the South Drescher, John · 2000 Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Sanford, Terry, -- 1917-1998; Governors -- North Carolina -- Election -- History -- 20th century; African Americans -- Segregation -- North Carolina -- History -- 20th century
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction 2008 Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) -- North Carolina; African Americans -- North Carolina -- Social conditions -- 19th century; African Americans -- Segregation -- North Carolina -- History -- 19th century
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina Greene, Christina · 2005 Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: African Americans -- Civil rights -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History -- 20th century; Civil rights movements -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History -- 20th century; African American women -- Political activity -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History -- 20th century

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