Key local figure
Braxton Foushee
Braxton Foushee became Carrboro's first African American alderman in 1969. In 1960 he sat down at the Colonial Drug Store lunch counter in Chapel Hill and asked to be served, and in March 2024 Carrboro renamed Carr Street as Braxton Foushee Street in his honor.
Source: Town of Carrboro: Our Roots Run Deep: Black History in Carrboro
Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Braxton Foushee. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Braxton Foushee’s life and work. If you know a useful source, tell us.
Life and Orange County connections
Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 1 dated event in the chronology →
- Braxton Foushee becomes Carrboro’s first Black alderman Braxton Foushee was elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 1969, the first Black member of the town's governing board, and served until 1981. He pressed for paved roads and sidewalks in Black neighborhoods and counted bringing bus service to Carrboro as his proudest achievement. People: Braxton FousheeTown of Carrboro: Braxton Foushee to Receive the Order of the Long Leaf Pine (November 14, 2025)
Research sources
Resources picked for this person, each with a note on what it holds. For ready-made searches of other catalogs, see Search further.
Background
- Carrboro Helps Braxton Foushee 'Smell His Flowers' with Street Dedication, CeremonyChapelboro (97.9 WCHL) Local news coverage, interviews, and anniversary features
- 'The work and the fruit of that labor': The Foushee family's legacyThe Daily Tar Heel The article covers the Foushee family, including his wife, Mayor Barbara Foushee.
Records of the time
- DigitalNC newspapers: 175 Orange County pages naming Braxton Foushee Searchable pages from historic Orange County newspapers
- Braxton Foushee - On the Civil Rights Movement and issues facing Chapel HillMarian Cheek Jackson Center Northside’s own center for civil rights and community history: oral histories, images, and neighborhood records, in the community’s own terms
- NC State Board of Elections: election results Official returns by county from the 1990s
Collections and databases
- NC LIVE: prepared search for Braxton Foushee 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
Local help
- Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection, Orange County Public Library The county library’s local-history room at the Main Library in Hillsborough: books, journals, maps, and microfilm of county records from 1752
- Local History Help Hours and request formOCPL Local History Liaison The library’s Local History Liaison helps in person most Mondays, 12 to 3, at the Main Library, or by the online request form
Search further
Ready-made searches in other catalogs and collections. Results are not checked against this person.
Books about Braxton Foushee
- WorldCat (opens in a new tab) Library catalogs worldwide
- OCPL (opens in a new tab) Orange County Public Library
More catalogs that show where copies are
- Chapel Hill Public Library (opens in a new tab) Public library in Chapel Hill
- Durham County Library (opens in a new tab) Public library next door in Durham
- UNC Libraries (opens in a new tab) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Duke Libraries (opens in a new tab) Duke University, Durham
- NC Cardinal (opens in a new tab) The State Library of North Carolina and public libraries across the state
Photographs, papers, and newspapers
- DigitalNC (opens in a new tab) North Carolina newspapers, yearbooks, and photographs
- DPLA (opens in a new tab) Digital collections from libraries, archives, and museums across the country
Historical records and collections
- Chronicling America (opens in a new tab) Historical newspapers from across the country, through 1963
- Internet Archive (opens in a new tab) Digitized books, directories, and local histories
- HathiTrust (opens in a new tab) Full text of digitized books
- ArchiveGrid (opens in a new tab) Papers held by archives across the country
Searched by name. The catalogs give no dates for this person, so results may include other people with the same name. The historical records searches look for the name as written, so they can turn up other people with the same name. Each link opens that catalog’s own results in a new tab. The Friends have not reviewed what they return.
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