Stanley Vickers

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 12 dated events in the chronology →

1. August 11, 1958 The county school board denies Stanley Vickers a place at the white Carrboro school The Orange County Board of Education turned down the Vickers family's application, the only one it had received from Black parents, for their son to attend the new Carrboro school. The board cited ambiguity in the form, which also named Chapel Hill Elementary, and the parents' absence from the hearing, and said that after the August 5 merger vote the boy could attend Chapel Hill schools without tuition. People: Stanley VickersThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 14, 1958, p. 1
2. August 15, 1958 The Vickers family appeals and asks the county to run its schools without segregation In a letter to the county superintendent, Thomas Lee and Lattice Vickers appealed the denial for their son Stanley B. Vickers, 10, who lived a block from Carrboro Elementary but was assigned to Northside Elementary in Chapel Hill, more than a mile away. They also appealed the board's 'failure and refusal' to operate the county schools on a non-segregated basis. People: Stanley VickersThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 21, 1958, p. 1
3. June 23, 1959 Stanley Vickers's parents apply for his transfer from Northside Elementary to Carrboro Elementary After ten-year-old Stanley Boya Vickers finished fifth grade at Northside Elementary School in June 1959, his parents, Thomas Lee and Lattice Vickers, filed a written application to have him reassigned to Carrboro Elementary School, which was much nearer their home. The school board denied it on August 3, 1959.Search the index · Caselaw Access Project: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97 (M.D.N.C. 1961)
4. August 3, 1959 Chapel Hill school board refuses Stanley Vickers a transfer to all-white Carrboro Elementary and adopts a first-grade proximity policy The Chapel Hill City Board of Education denied ten-year-old Stanley Vickers a transfer from all-Black Northside Elementary to the nearer all-white Carrboro Elementary School, and at the same meeting adopted a policy of limited integration at the first-grade level starting with the 1960-61 year. UNC law dean Henry Brandis, who had twice moved to approve the transfer, resigned from the board in protest and called the action both morally and legally indefensible. People: Stanley Vickers, Henry P. Brandis Jr.The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 6, 1959, p. 1 · Also: Justia: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97
5. August 31, 1959 Brandis returns for the Vickers hearing, then leaves the Chapel Hill school board Brandis withdrew his August 3 resignation so he could sit at the board's hearing on Stanley Vickers's transfer request on August 31. He resigned again after that meeting, and the board named a committee to find his successor. People: Stanley VickersSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 31, 1959, p. 1
6. February 2, 1960 The Vickers family files its federal suit against the Chapel Hill City Board of Education Suing through his parents, Stanley Vickers asked the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina to declare his right to attend the public schools without racial discrimination. After the board turned down his June 1960 application to Chapel Hill Junior High, the complaint was amended to seek that school, and the case was tried on October 5, 1960.Search the index · Caselaw Access Project: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97 (M.D.N.C. 1961)
7. June 27, 1960 Chapel Hill school board admits its first Black pupils to a white school, three first graders at Estes Hills Elementary Acting under its new proximity policy, the board voted unanimously to grant three of twelve Black reassignment applications for the 1960-61 first grade at previously all-white Estes Hills Elementary School. Applications to transfer to the white junior high school, including Stanley Vickers's, were refused. People: Stanley VickersCivil Rights Movement Archive: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools Southern States 1962 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)
8. December 20, 1960 Final arguments are heard in Stanley Vickers's suit against the Chapel Hill schools Judge Edwin Stanley heard final arguments in federal court in Durham on the two-year-old case seeking Vickers's transfer from Lincoln Junior High to the white Chapel Hill Junior High. School board attorney J. Q. LeGrand called the case weak and said the board had followed the Pupil Assignment Act; New York attorney Derrick Bell argued that geography played little part in the board's assignments. People: Stanley VickersThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 22, 1960, p. 3
9. Fall 1961 Carrboro Elementary School enrolls its first Black pupils Eight Black first graders were assigned to Carrboro Elementary under the 1961 zoning map, the school Stanley Vickers had been refused two years earlier. All but two requested and received transfers back to the Black school, so two Black children enrolled at Carrboro that fall. People: Stanley VickersCivil Rights Movement Archive: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools Southern States 1962 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)
10. Fall 1961 The first Black students enter the formerly white Chapel Hill junior-senior high school on Franklin Street For 1961-62 the board granted two of three Black applications to the white junior high school and later reassigned a fourth child who had moved into the district, while the federal court ordered Stanley Vickers admitted to the eighth grade there. Sheila Florence, who described herself as one of the first four Black students and who graduated from Chapel Hill High School on Franklin Street in 1965, was one of them, and Eugene Hines was another Black student in the school. People: Stanley Vickers, Sheila FlorenceCivil Rights Movement Archive: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools Southern States 1962 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)
11. August 4, 1961 Federal court rules Chapel Hill denied Stanley Vickers a junior high transfer because of his race Chief Judge Edwin M. Stanley of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina held that the Chapel Hill City Board of Education had refused Vickers reassignment to all-white Chapel Hill Junior High School on account of race and that he was entitled to be admitted there for the 1961-62 school year. The suit had been filed on February 2, 1960 and tried on October 5, 1960. People: Stanley VickersJustia: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97 (M.D.N.C. 1961)
12. August 12, 2021 Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board honors Stanley Vickers and his family on the 60th anniversary of his court victory The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board passed a resolution recognizing the Vickers family's work to integrate the schools. Vickers, then in his 70s, attended and recalled eating lunch and going to gym alone as one of the first Black students at the junior high.Search the index · INDY Week: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board Honors Stanley Vickers and His Family's Work to Integrate Area Schools (August 18, 2021)