Key local figure
Frank Porter Graham graduated from UNC in 1909, taught history at Chapel Hill from 1914, and became the university's president in 1930 and the first president of the Consolidated University of North Carolina after the 1932 merger. Appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1949, he lost the 1950 Democratic runoff to Willis Smith in a racially charged campaign.
Source: NCpedia: Graham, Frank Porter
1886–1972 as the Library of Congress records it · On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗
79 indexed works are connected with this person, and the index includes 16 works by Frank Porter Graham. 1 held at OCPL →
Works in the index that concern this person directly, or were written by them. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it; background reading with wider context sits further down.
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Frank Porter Graham, former president of the University of North Carolina and a United States senator, sets out a statement on free speech and the right of assembly at Chapel Hill, published by the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union in 1966. A note records that his commencement address at the university on June 6 of that year was drawn from it. Fourteen leaves.
An article centered on Frank Porter Graham's speech at the ceremony where John Motley Morehead, who lived from 1870 to 1965, presented a sundial to the University of North Carolina, published in 1956. It also touches on sundials in Chapel Hill and the Morehead Planetarium.
Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, gathered his written and spoken statements on the case of the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church and its minister Charles M. Jones into a nine-leaf summary dated January 24, 1953. The dispute touched Presbyterians in Chapel Hill and the town's race relations.
A program for the dedication of the Forest Theatre in Chapel Hill, issued by the University of North Carolina in 1943 and marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Carolina Playmakers, 1918 to 1943. Frederick H. Koch, who founded the Playmakers, and university president Frank Porter Graham are both also named for the open-air theater.
Frank Porter Graham, president of the University of North Carolina, on the conversion of Person Hall into a gallery for modern art in 1937. It marks the start of the Person Hall Art Gallery on the campus.
Frank Porter Graham's short tribute to Chapel Hill, printed by the Carolina Inn in 1934 on a single small sheet with illustrations. The verso gives the inn's room rates and notes that the hotel was owned and operated by the University of North Carolina, which Graham led as president at the time. Topics include hotel rates in Chapel Hill and description and travel of the university.
All 16 works by Frank Porter Graham →
A longer Southern Oral History Program interview with Presbyterian minister Charles M. Jones (1906-1993), recorded November 8, 1976, by Joseph A. Herzenberg. Jones traces his civil rights work in Chapel Hill from the 1930s into the 1960s. He characterizes town and university leaders, Frank Porter Graham among them, as cautiously liberal on race, willing to allow a little integration at performances and student activities, and describes the church's place in the town's social conflicts. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
The Rev. Charles M. Jones (1906-1993), minister of Chapel Hill's Presbyterian church in the late 1940s, and his wife Dorcas talk with John Egerton in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded July 21, 1990. Jones spends most of the hour on the disputes his stand on race provoked, when the regional presbytery objected to his conduct of the church, and his dealings with university president Frank Porter Graham. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
Charles Kuralt's biography of Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972), president of the University of North Carolina and later a United States senator, published in 1993 by Franklin Street Books. It concerns college presidents, educators and statesmen of North Carolina, and the Senate. Kuralt, himself a North Carolina author, gives the book the subtitle life with Frank Porter Graham.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Chapel Hill PL record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III on the 1950 Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina, in which Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, lost to Willis Smith after a campaign marked by race-baiting. Primaries, elections and race relations in the state are its subjects. Published by UNC Press in 1990, 356 pages with illustrations.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-.
Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1991), The American Historical Review (1991), Journal of American History (1991), The Journal of Southern History (1992).
Warren Ashby's biography of Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972), president of the University of North Carolina from 1930 to 1949 and later a United States senator. Published by Blair in 1981, x and 386 pages with sixteen leaves of plates and a bibliography.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
Reviewed in The American Historical Review (1981), Journal of American History (1981).
William A. Link's biography of Frank Porter Graham, president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later a United States senator, published in 2021. Topics include college presidents, educators and statesmen of North Carolina and the history of the university. Graham's long Chapel Hill career makes this an Orange County life.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Chapel Hill PL record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
An oral history interview with Calvin Kytle recorded January 19, 1991 and released in 2006. It also concerns Elizabeth Kytle, the Southern Regional Council, the Citizens Fact Finding Movement of Georgia, race relations in the South, Lillian Smith and Frank Porter Graham of the university at Chapel Hill.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
Transcript of an oral history interview with the sociologist Guy Benton Johnson, recorded on July 22, 1990 and issued in 2006. Subjects include Howard Washington Odum, Frank Porter Graham, the Southern Regional Council and segregation in the South, subjects that run through Johnson's working life at Chapel Hill.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
Documentary history of the housekeeping staff at the University of North Carolina, put together in 1996 by the UNC Housekeepers Association from records in the University Archive, with Alan McSurely credited as compiler. Seventy-eight unnumbered pages of facsimiles reproduce correspondence, including letters of Frank Porter Graham, covering six decades of employment and pay disputes at Chapel Hill.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
Martin Clark's 1994 work on Frank Porter Graham, former university president at Chapel Hill and United States senator. It concerns North Carolina history since 1865 and politics in the state and the South after 1951.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
A 1993 volume of conference material about Frank Porter Graham, who led the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before serving in the United States Senate.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972.
Conference papers on Frank Porter Graham (1886 to 1972), president of the University of North Carolina and later a United States senator, compiled by James Clotfelter and published by UNC-Greensboro in 1993.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Graham, Frank Porter.
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.
Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III on the 1950 Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina, in which Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, lost to Willis Smith after a campaign marked by race-baiting. Primaries, elections and race relations in the state are its subjects. Published by UNC Press in 1990, 356 pages with illustrations.
Dated events connected with this person: sixteen of 41, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 41 dated events in the chronology →
Frank Porter Graham was born in Fayetteville; he later led UNC.
Asked for help by the young Black workers who cut firewood and carried water in the dormitories, students began teaching them reading and arithmetic in what were called moonlight schools. Under Frank Porter Graham at the campus YMCA the classes grew to take in history, English, writing, debating, home sanitation and the Bible.
People: Frank Porter Graham
Subject: University YMCA
Chase brought Graham back from the Marines over the summer to fill the new post of dean of students, in charge of discipline and of reviving student government after the SATC, while also teaching history. He agreed to try it for a year.
People: Harry Woodburn Chase
A day after Greensboro alumni founded the Association for the Promotion of Higher Education, Graham spoke to an alumni meeting in Hillsboro, one of nearly two dozen club gatherings across the state that October.
Under attack from textile editor David Clark, Chase sent Howard Odum, Dudley D. Carroll and Frank Graham a discussion memo on proper activities for social scientists. Faculty whose causes involved colleagues in general embarrassment should leave, he wrote; in North Carolina such causes included certain taxes, labor organizing, racial equality and socialism.
People: Howard W. Odum · Dudley Dewitt Carroll · Frank Porter Graham
Alexander H. Graham chaired the committee that hired Frank Porter Graham as president of the University of North Carolina in 1930. His papers hold the committee correspondence from February to May 1930.
People: Frank Porter Graham
A School of Library Science was added at Chapel Hill in 1931, early in Frank Porter Graham's presidency.
People: Frank Porter Graham
Frank Porter Graham came to an association meeting to tell the janitors that the Depression would cut their wages but that everyone would come through together. Cheek then moved that the Janitors' Association give five dollars to the fund set up to keep students in school, the first campus organization to contribute to it.
Part of Black workers and campus labor · 31 events
People: Frank Porter Graham
About six hundred officials and citizens from nearly every county came to Chapel Hill for a two-day meeting Coates had promoted all summer. Frank Graham opened the Friday evening session in Gerrard Hall and Harvard law dean Roscoe Pound gave the closing address on Saturday, when the organizing committee approved hiring Coates as director with a staff.
People: Frank Porter Graham · O. Max Gardner
Subject: Institute of Government · Gerrard Hall
In 1934 Dean Robert House wrote to President Frank Porter Graham about a request from association president Elliot Washington for help with union membership, since the janitors could not afford local union dues.
People: Frank Porter Graham · R. B. House
In May 1935 Dean Van Hecke reported that Coates's teaching had failed again and, with the whole law faculty behind him, asked that Coates be freed from law school duties to run the Institute. Coates threatened to demand an academic trial; Graham declined the transfer and again refused Van Hecke's offer to resign, and Coates rejoined the law faculty in February 1936 and taught there for thirty years.
People: Frank Porter Graham · R. B. House
Subject: UNC School of Law
Pauli Murray, who grew up in Durham and lived in New York, applied to UNC's graduate school in 1938 to study with Howard Odum and Guy B. Johnson. On December 14, two days after the Supreme Court's Gaines ruling, Dean W. W. Pierson rejected her because of her race, and her appeals to President Frank Porter Graham became national news.
Part of Desegregating the University of North Carolina, 1951–1955 · 14 events
People: Frank Porter Graham · Pauli Murray
President Frank Porter Graham founded the Inter-American Institute in 1940, growing out of Leavitt's work building Latin American research collections. Leavitt directed it until 1959; it took the name Institute of Latin American Studies in 1947.
People: Frank Porter Graham
In 1941 the university received 108 students from seven South American countries for English courses and regular classes in a program Leavitt directed. The General Assembly met in special joint session in Chapel Hill in their honor.
People: Frank Porter Graham
Subject: University Summer School
North Carolina created chancellorships for its three campuses in 1945, and President Frank Porter Graham turned to House, who had been executive secretary from 1926 and dean of administration from 1934. House held the post until 1957, the longest chancellorship at Chapel Hill.
People: Frank Porter Graham
Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972), first president of the consolidated University of North Carolina and later a United States senator, was buried in the cemetery.
Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 7 with a known location.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
People named in the same dated entries as Frank Porter Graham, 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.
The index lists works with an Orange County connection. To find everything else about Frank Porter Graham, search these catalogs.
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Picture: Frank Porter Graham. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons U.S. Senate Historical Office. File:Frank Porter Graham.jpg . Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Accessed February 20, 2026.
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