Skip to content

Figure in a named event

James A. Medford

James A. Medford was president of the Young Men's Christian Association at UNC in Chapel Hill in 1966 and one of the students who asked Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson to let Herbert Aptheker and Frank Wilkinson speak on campus. He was a plaintiff in Dickson v. Sitterson, which struck down the Speaker Ban Law in 1968.

Source: Caselaw Access Project: Dickson v. Sitterson, 280 F. Supp. 486 (M.D.N.C. 1968)

0 indexed records are connected with this person.

In the index

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

No work in the index names this person by itself yet. The works below belong to Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968, the wider story it is part of (49 works in all).

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, April 5, 1991: interview L-0064-7, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

This is the seventh interview in a nine-part series of interviews with civil liberties lawyer Daniel H. Pollitt. In this interview, Pollitt focuses on the Speaker Ban controversy as it unfolded on the campus of the Univ…

Oral history interview with William C. Friday, November 26, 1990: interview L-0145, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Friday, William C. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

William C. Friday served as the president of the University of North Carolina system from 1957 to 1986. This interview is part of a longer, multi-part interview conducted with Friday in 1990. Here, Friday focuses primar…

Speaking freely : UNC-CH administrators respond to freedom of expression, 1963-1970

Floren, Gillian Dae · 1989

UNC

Commencement address.

Knight, Douglas M., 1921-2005 · 1965

UNC
Show 6 more

Newspaper clippings (1965-1966) on the tenure of Paul Dickson as UNC student body president

2011

UNC

Snipes, Mac and William Friday, Ferebee Taylor, James Wallace: photographs (Chapel Hill Historical Society)

1986

1 photograph in the Society's People P-Z binder: "Party honoring Mac Snipes on his 80th birthday".

Frank Wilkinson and several unidentified people walking down a street in Chapel Hill, March 2, 1966

News and observer (Raleigh, N.C.) · 1966

Frank Wilkinson and several unidentified people walking down a street in Chapel Hill.

Frank Wilkinson in Chapel Hill, March 2, 1966

News and observer (Raleigh, N.C.) · 1966

Frank Wilkinson speaking with unidentified man during his visit to Chapel Hill to address students from off campus.

Frank Wilkinson speaking to Chapel Hill Police officer, March 2, 1966

News and observer (Raleigh, N.C.) · 1966

Frank Wilkinson speaking to Chapel Hill Police officer.

Frank Wilkinson speaking to students in Chapel Hill, March 2, 1966

News and observer (Raleigh, N.C.) · 1966

Frank Wilkinson speaking to students in Chapel Hill from the non-campus side of a wall on Franklin Street.

In the chronology

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See the whole chronology →

  1. Jim Medford is elected president of the campus YMCA A Daily Tar Heel photograph taken on the steps of South Building shows Jim Medford as the newly elected YMCA president with the other officers chosen in the ca…Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 13, 1965, page 1
  2. Medford is named to the student government State Affairs committee Student Body President Paul Dickson's committee appointments, printed in the Daily Tar Heel, put Jim Medford on the State Affairs committee along with Henry Pa…Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, October 3, 1965, page 3
  3. Eight student groups re-invite Frank Wilkinson under the trustees' new speaker rules The day after the full board of trustees adopted speaker regulations on February 28, Paul Dickson and leaders of the Carolina Forum, the YMCA, the YWCA, the Da… People: J. Carlyle Sitterson, Paul Dickson III, Herbert Aptheker, George E. Nicholson III, Robert S. Powell Jr., James A. Medford, Eunice H. Milton, John E. Greenbacker Jr., Eric Van Loon, Gary Waller, Stuart MatthewsSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 2, 1966, page 1
  4. Student leaders ask the chancellor to let Wilkinson and Aptheker speak on campus Paul Dickson and the heads of Carolina Forum, the YMCA, the YWCA, Di-Phi, the Carolina Political Union and SDS wrote to Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson asking … People: J. Carlyle Sitterson, Paul Dickson III, George E. Nicholson III, Robert S. Powell Jr., James A. Medford, Eunice H. Milton, John E. Greenbacker Jr., Eric Van Loon, Gary Waller, Stuart MatthewsUNC Libraries: Letter, Students to Chancellor J.C. Sitterson, 14 March 1966
  5. Students and the two speakers file Dickson v. Sitterson against the Speaker Ban Minutes after Sitterson refused the students' request, Paul Dickson and eleven other student leaders, joined by Wilkinson and Aptheker as plaintiffs, sued Sitt… People: J. Carlyle Sitterson, Paul Dickson III, Herbert Aptheker, William C. Friday, George E. Nicholson III, Robert S. Powell Jr., James A. Medford, Eunice H. Milton, John E. Greenbacker Jr., Eric Van Loon, Gary Waller, Stuart MatthewsUNC Carolina Story: One Final Effort

Continue your research

We have not added outside sources for this person yet. The index still lists the related works below. If you know a useful source, tell us.

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.

Search the Wall Collection for this person →

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connects people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026