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Local figure

Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner)

Carl Smith, an investment counselor, served eight years as an Orange County commissioner and two years in the North Carolina House. In 1974 he ran in the Democratic primary for the state Senate, stressing auto insurance reform and repeal of the sales tax on food.

Source: Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): state Senate primary candidates, April 30, 1974, p. 8

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner). The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner)’s life and work.

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 6 dated events in the chronology →

  1. The Carl Smith Building is completed on North Columbia Street Carl Smith's commercial building on North Columbia Street was completed in 1949; Gooch's Cafe moved in, and the area office of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis took rooms on the second floor.Search the index · Chapel Hill Weekly (DigitalNC): Gooch's Cafe history, December 21, 1956, p. 1
  2. Chapel Hill school board pledges to comply with Brown "to the best of our ability" Under chairman Carl Smith, the Chapel Hill school board unanimously resolved to comply with the Supreme Court's integration ruling to the best of its ability while operating its schools under the state's school laws, keeping existing assignment practices for 1955-56.Search the index · Chapel Hill News Leader (DigitalNC): Racial Stand Is Taken In School Board Policy, August 18, 1955, p. 6
  3. Carl Smith leads the Democratic primary for Orange County commissioner Carl Smith of Chapel Hill topped the six-man Democratic primary for three county commissioner seats with 3,783 votes, ahead of Gordon Cleveland and Donald McDade; nomination usually amounted to election in the county.Search the index · Chapel Hill Weekly (DigitalNC): Carl Smith Leads Race For Board, May 28, 1962, p. 1
  4. County planning board recommends rezoning the Blackwood Station tract for Fiber Industries The Orange County Planning Board unanimously recommended rezoning the 450-acre Blackwood Station tract from residential to industrial for a $100 million Fiber Industries plant promising 1,500 jobs. Board member Mark Burnham pressed for stricter performance standards, and commissioners Carl Smith, Ira Ward and Harvey Bennett had backed the Chamber of Commerce's pro-Fiber campaign. People: Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner)Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, July 24, 1969, p. 1
  5. Fiber Industries withdraws its New Hope Creek rezoning request; commissioners chairman Carl Smith blames opponents Fiber Industries withdrew its request to rezone 450 acres near New Hope Creek for a plant after opposition from UNC, Duke and Mayor Howard Lee. County commissioners chairman Carl Smith blamed 'unintelligent intellectuals' and a town political 'machine', and said Lee, the town's Black mayor, was not serving Black residents by opposing the plant. People: Howard N. LeeSearch the index · Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Fiber Industries withdraws request, August 7, 1969, p. 1
  6. The old Methodist parsonage, later the Kappa Psi house, is torn down for a parking lot A contractor demolished the brick house on West Rosemary Street that had been the Methodist parsonage and then the Kappa Psi house, turning down a $10,000 offer to move and restore it. Its owner, county commissioner Carl Smith, planned to lease the lot to the town for parking. People: Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner)Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, April 2, 1970, p. 6

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.

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Background on School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1959–1967

These works give background on School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1959–1967, the wider story this person is part of (42 works in all). Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Oral history interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001: interview K-0216, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Regester, Charlene B. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Charlene Regester (born 1956) recalls being one of the first Black children to attend Chapel Hill's white elementary schools, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded February 23, 2001, by Susan Upton. Her parents, convinced that integrated schools would give Black children better resources, petitioned for her transfer to Estes Hills Elementary, then all white, and Regester describes what those years were like for her. About 45 minutes. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Fran Jackson, March 23, 2001: interview K-0208, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Jackson, Fran · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Fran Jackson recalls school integration in Chapel Hill as a student in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded March 23, 2001, by Christa Broadnax. Jackson began at Northside Elementary and moved to Guy B. Phillips, the integrated junior high, after her parents petitioned for the transfer. She explains that Black parents backed integration because it promised their children the resources the white schools had, and describes what the change meant socially for Black students. Published online in 2007 in Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Sam Holton, March 28, 2001: interview K-0206, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Holton, Samuel M. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Samuel M. Holton (1922-2010) sat on Chapel Hill's school board during desegregation. Elected in 1968 after a term as PTA president, he took office as racial tension rose after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Talking with Jenny Matthews in March 2001, he describes the board's decisions on integrating the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the conflicts that came with them. Runs about eighty minutes; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2007 through Documenting the American South.

Black Freedom and the University of North Carolina, 1793-1960

Chapman, John K. · 2006 · John K. (Yonni) Chapman

John K. Chapman's 2006 study of race at UNC from 1793 to 1960, issued by the author. Chapman argues that standard university histories play down the institution's role in upholding white supremacy through slavery, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, and that they leave out what African Americans contributed to the campus. It also covers segregation in education and the social conditions of Black residents of Chapel Hill across two centuries. 215 pages with maps.

Oral history interview with Burnis Hackney, February 5, 2001: interview K-0547, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Hackney, Burnis · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Burnis Hackney entered Chapel Hill High School, newly integrated, in 1966, one of the first Black students there after Lincoln High School closed. In this Southern Oral History Program interview, recorded February 5, 2001, by Bob Gilgor, Hackney weighs his conviction that integration was right against what was lost when Lincoln's traditions were set aside, and how the merger played out for students. About an hour and a half. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Fred Battle, January 3, 2001: interview K-0525, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Battle, Fred · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Fred Battle grew up in Chapel Hill under segregation and describes that world in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded January 3, 2001, by Bob Gilgor. He portrays the Black community of his youth as centered on the church and on Lincoln High School, recalls his schooling there, and tells of his college years in Greensboro and the civil rights demonstrations he joined there. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Show 6 more

Oral history interview with Gloria Register Jeter, December 23, 2000: interview K-0549, Southern Oral History Program (#4007)

Jeter, Gloria Register · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Gloria Register Jeter (born 1952) attended both segregated and integrated public schools of Chapel Hill and offers a critical view of how desegregation was carried out, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded December 23, 2000, by Bob Gilgor. Jeter argues that the merger of Lincoln High School into Chapel Hill High School cost the Black community its school traditions and institutions, and describes the student protests that followed. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with James Atwater, February 28, 2001: interview K-0201, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Atwater, James · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

James Atwater, born in 1932 into a family that had lived in Chapel Hill for generations, talked with Jennifer Nardone in February 2001. He describes the town's Black community between the 1930s and the 1950s: how neighbors dealt with one another in church, at school and in social life, and what schooling under segregation meant at Orange County Training School and Lincoln High School. About an hour and eighteen minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Joanne Peerman, February 24, 2001: interview K-0557, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Peerman, Joanne · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Joanne Peerman, a Chapel Hill native and the daughter of a well-known coach, was in one of the first classes to integrate Chapel Hill High School. In this Southern Oral History Program interview, recorded by Bob Gilgor in February 2001, she describes her schooling under segregation and after it, the last years of Lincoln High School, and the civil rights demonstrations that accompanied school integration. About an hour and a half; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Kathryn Cheeks, March 27, 2003: interview K-0203, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Cheeks, Kathryn · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

A short interview, about thirty-one minutes, with Kathryn Cheeks, a white woman from Chapel Hill who attended elementary school while the town's public schools were desegregating. Talking with Susan Upton in March 2003, she recalls what a child noticed and missed about desegregation, race relations at Chapel Hill High School, and the civil rights demonstrations of the period. Part of the Southern Oral History Program; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2006 through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Raney Norwood, January 9, 2001: interview K-0556, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Norwood, Raney · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Raney Norwood was among the African American students who moved from Lincoln High School to the newly desegregated Chapel Hill High School. Interviewed by Bob Gilgor in January 2001, he recalls the traditions left behind at Lincoln, a hard first year at the new school, and the nonviolent protests students mounted to carry those traditions over. An Upward Bound math-science program also comes up. Runs about an hour and three quarters; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2006 through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Rebecca Clark, June 21, 2000: interview K-0536, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Clark, Rebecca · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Interview recorded June 21, 2000 with Rebecca Clark (1915-2009), a Black Chapel Hill resident, for the Southern Oral History Program at UNC. Clark, educated in Chapel Hill's segregated schools, describes working life under segregation and the economic discrimination she met in it. Topics also include Lincoln High School, school integration, and Howard Lee, elected mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969. Interview K-0536 in collection #4007.

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