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Robert S. Powell Jr.

Robert S. Powell Jr. was executive director of the Carolina Forum at UNC in Chapel Hill and one of the students who asked Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson for permission for Herbert Aptheker and Frank Wilkinson to 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)

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Robert S. Powell Jr. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Robert S. Powell Jr.’s life and work.

Search works on Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 Research sources View background reading ↓
Bob Powell, Yackety Yack, 1967
Bob Powell, Yackety Yack, 1967

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 8 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Bob Powell is named executive director of the Carolina Forum The Daily Tar Heel's list of student government appointments made by Student Body President Paul Dickson gives Bob Powell as executive director of the Carolina Forum for the 1965-66 year. People: Paul Dickson IIISearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, October 3, 1965, page 3
  2. Eric Van Loon becomes assistant to the student body president After Robert S. Powell Jr. was elected student body president in the spring of 1966, the Daily Tar Heel reported that Van Loon had newly taken on the roles of student legislator, National Student Association delegate and presidential assistant to Powell. He had run unsuccessfully for student body treasurer the previous spring. People: Robert S. Powell Jr.Search the index · North Carolina Newspapers: The Daily Tar Heel, May 1, 1966, page 1
  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 Daily Tar Heel, the Di-Phi, Students for a Democratic Society and the Carolina Political Union formally told Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson that Wilkinson was invited for March 2 and Aptheker for March 9. Wilkinson spoke to the Duke Bar Association in Durham that day. 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 that Wilkinson speak on March 23 and Aptheker on March 25, or on later dates. 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. Bob Powell wins the runoff for UNC student body president Powell, the Student Party candidate, beat University Party candidate Teddy O'Toole by 2,401 votes to 1,993 in the runoff, two days before the Speaker Ban suit was filed.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 31, 1966, page 1
  6. 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 Sitterson, President William C. Friday and the trustees in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Attorney McNeill Smith took the case without fee. 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 Matthews, Frank WilkinsonUNC Carolina Story: One Final Effort
  7. Powell is named to the student-faculty committee on visiting speakers The Daily Tar Heel listed Bob Powell first among the members of the student-faculty committee on visiting speakers, in the same story that printed the students' request to the chancellor.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 27, 1966, page 1
  8. Powell takes office as UNC student body president The Daily Tar Heel said the new president's inauguration was set for April 14, 1966. Its April 15 issue describes Bob Powell acting as student body president with Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson at a campus clothing drive. People: J. Carlyle SittersonSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 27, 1966, page 1

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Named with them in the chronology

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Background on Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968

These works give background on Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968, the wider story this person is part of (84 works in all). Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

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

Seventh of nine Southern Oral History Program interviews with Daniel H. Pollitt, a professor at the UNC School of Law. Recorded April 5, 1991, by Ann McColl, this session of just under an hour is devoted to the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 act of the General Assembly that barred Communists and certain other speakers from state campuses, and to the fight over it at Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s, in which Pollitt took part. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

I raised my hand to volunteer: students protest in 1960s Chapel Hill : an exhibit of the Manuscripts Department in the Wilson Library

Hollingsworth, Biff · 2007

Catalog of an exhibit mounted by the Manuscripts Department of Wilson Library from January 23 to May 31, 2007, on student protest in Chapel Hill during the 1960s. Topics include civil rights demonstrations, the Speaker Ban Law, the Black Student Movement, restaurant strikes and Vietnam War protests at the university. Compiled by Biff Hollingsworth, 59 pages with illustrations and facsimiles, published by the university library.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Oral history interview with Ashley Davis, April 12, 1974: interview E-0062, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Davis, Ashley · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Ashley Davis, who entered UNC in 1968 and joined the Black Student Movement, recalls the 1969 strike by the university's cafeteria workers and the BSM's decision to stand with them when the workers asked. Recorded April 12, 1974, by Russell Rymer for the Southern Oral History Program, the hour-and-a-half interview touches on Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the Southern Student Organizing Committee and race relations among students on campus. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

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

In this session with William Link, recorded in November 1990, William C. Friday concentrates on the Speaker Ban Law. The 1963 law barred Communists and certain others from speaking on state campuses, and Friday, as UNC system president, spent five years working to undo it. He discusses the law's origins, the fight over academic freedom and free speech at Chapel Hill, and relations between the university and the state. About eighty minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2007, through Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Communists on Campus

Billingsley, William J. · 1999 · University of Georgia Press

William J. Billingsley's history of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 North Carolina statute that barred known Communists from speaking on state campuses, and the fight over it at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The subtitle sets the scope: race, politics and the public university in sixties North Carolina. It treats academic freedom, anti-communist movements and free speech in the state. University of Georgia Press, 1999, 308 pages with eight pages of plates.

Reviewed in Academe (2000), The American Historical Review (2001), The Journal of Southern History (2001), Journal of American History (2001), The Journal of Politics (2001).

Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU UNC Library of Congress

Progress and protests : UNC-Chapel Hill leaders during "the Long Sixties" (1957-1972) : covering chancellors William Brantley Aycock, Paul F. Sharp, and J. Carlyle Sitterson

Roundtree, Lynn · 2024 · Lynn Roundtree

Lynn Roundtree covers the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill between 1957 and 1972 through its three chancellors, William Brantley Aycock, Paul F. Sharp and J. Carlyle Sitterson, set against the student movements of those years. Part of the Coates university leadership series, published by the author in 2024 and running to 926 pages. It is twentieth century campus history.

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

Floren, Gillian Dae · 1989

Gillian Dae Floren examined how University of North Carolina administrators at Chapel Hill answered questions of free expression between 1963 and 1970, the years of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1969 food service employees' strike and the 1970 student strike. Completed in 1989 with a bibliography on leaves 101 to 104, it reaches to the General Assembly act regulating visiting speakers at state supported colleges.

UNC

The coy mistress caper.

1966 · Time Inc

A four page article clipped from Life, volume 61, number 20, dated November 11, 1966, on a dispute over academic freedom at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The article concerns the instructor Michael Paull, Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, Jesse Helms and Andrew Marvell's poem 'To His Coy Mistress'. Illustrated, with portraits.

UNC

Campus censorship : the North Carolina "visiting speakers" law

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 1963 · D.H. Pollitt

Daniel H. Pollitt's paper on the North Carolina visiting speakers law, the 1963 statute restricting who could speak on the state's public campuses. Prepared for distribution to the university's chapter of the American Association of University Professors and scheduled for the North Carolina Law Review of December 1963, it treats academic freedom and censorship at Chapel Hill.

UNC

Commencement address.

Knight, Douglas M., 1921-2005 · 1965

A sound recording: Douglas M. Knight's commencement address at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on June 7, 1965, broadcast by radio station WUNC and preserved on one analog audiocassette. Knight took as his subject the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 statute limiting who could speak on North Carolina campuses, and with it academic freedom and freedom of speech in the state.

UNC

Office of Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Carol L. Folt records, 2013-2018

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Office of the Chancellor · 2013

Chancellor's office records from the tenure of Carol L. Folt at Chapel Hill, 2013 to 2018, 8 linear feet in the University Archives at UNC, collection 40024. Topics include university administration and educational fund raising, curriculum planning, health occupations schools and medical education, and race relations and college integration in North Carolina. Holden Thorp and Christopher C. Fordham also appear.

UNC

Rebellion in black and white : southern student activism in the 1960s

Morrow, Kelly; Sellers, Cleveland, 1944- · 2013 · The Johns Hopkins University Press

Southern student activism in the 1960s, taking in civil rights organizing, Black Power in Greensboro, the Speaker Ban Law and student movements at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It also concerns student sexual freedom and sexual ethics in Chapel Hill. Kelly Morrow and Cleveland Sellers contribute; published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in Baltimore in 2013.

UNC

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  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Robert S. Powell Jr. 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
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Picture: Bob Powell, Yackety Yack, 1967. Public domain. Yackety Yack, 1967 (University of North Carolina yearbook); via the Internet Archive

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