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At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Van Loon was chairman of the Carolina Political Union. In 1966 he joined eleven other enrolled UNC students, with Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker, as a plaintiff in Dickson v. Sitterson, the case that struck down the state Speaker Ban Law in 1968.
Source: Justia: Dickson v. Sitterson, 280 F. Supp. 486 (M.D.N.C. 1968)
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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).
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…
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…
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.
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.
Frank Wilkinson speaking to students in Chapel Hill from the non-campus side of a wall on Franklin Street.
Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See the whole chronology →
A Daily Tar Heel profile in May 1966 reported that Van Loon, a junior from Nashville, had spent the past year as chairman of the Carolina Political Union, vice president of the debating team, National Student Association campus coordinator, a Morrison resident adviser and treasurer of the Carolina Symposium.
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.
The Daily Tar Heel reported that Paul Dickson, Eric Van Loon and George Nicholson met Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson in his office for about thirty minutes, and that Van Loon carried a tape recorder. When Sitterson found the conversation was being recorded he made them play the tape back and erase it, saying it upset him that they had not mentioned it.
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 Matthews
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.
Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 11 events
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 Matthews
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.
Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 11 events
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
The General Alumni Association published Van Loon’s My Carolina Story, given as a member of its board of directors. In it he recounts chairing the Carolina Political Union and signing the Speaker Ban lawsuit as one of a dozen students who were plaintiffs.
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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.
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