Storyline · 1985–1986
In January 1985 the UNC Board of Governors began its search for a successor to William Friday, president since 1956. The board chose C. D. Spangler Jr., a Charlotte businessman, in January 1986; Friday retired at midnight on February 28, and Spangler took office on March 1. Spangler was inaugurated on Polk Place on October 17, 1986 before about 4,500 people.
On January 11, 1985, meeting in closed session, the UNC Board of Governors gave its chairman, Philip Carson, power to name nine members to a committee, with a 16-member advisory panel, to find a successor to President William C. Friday, who had been president since 1956 and had announced he would retire in July 1986. On University Day, October 12, 1985, the University's 192nd birthday, Friday gave his last major address to the faculty before about 1,100 people in Memorial Hall.
On January 31, 1986 the Board of Governors unanimously chose C. D. Spangler Jr., a Charlotte businessman and 1954 graduate of the University, to succeed Friday. Friday made his farewell to the board on February 14 to a long ovation, announcing that Spangler would take over on March 1 and that he would serve as a consultant until his resignation took effect June 30. On February 28 he closed his office in the General Administration building on Raleigh Road for the last time and retired at midnight, ending thirty years as head of the University, and Spangler took office at 12:01 a.m. on March 1. Friday kept an office in Davis Library.
On October 17, 1986 Spangler took the oath as president from Joseph Branch before about 4,500 people on Polk Place, in what the Daily Tar Heel called the first inauguration of a system president in Chapel Hill since Frank Porter Graham's. Classes were suspended for the ceremony, Gov. Jim Martin and Charles Kuralt gave greetings, and Spangler pledged to hold down tuition and led an ovation for Friday. He went on to lead the sixteen-campus system for eleven years, fighting to keep tuition low and reforming intercollegiate athletics.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.
Georgia Carroll Kyser's brief biographical tribute to William Clyde Friday and his wife Ida Howell Friday, published by the North Caroliniana Society in 1984. It runs 25 pages with eight pages of plates and illustrations. Friday led the consolidated state university from Chapel Hill, where the couple made their home.
Robert W. Scott (1929-2009), North Carolina's governor between 1969 and 1973 and son of Governor Kerr Scott, interviewed by William Link on April 4, 1990 for the Southern Oral History Program. Scott discusses his student years at North Carolina State College in the early 1950s and his dealings with university president William Friday, including the food workers' strike at Chapel Hill, college integration, and the consolidation of the state's universities into the UNC System during his term. One hour thirty-seven minutes. Electronic edition 2007.
William C. Friday, UNC system president from 1957 until 1986, was interviewed by Cindy Cheatham in December 1990 about Anne Queen (1911-2005). Queen came to the campus YWCA as associate director in 1956 and led the merged YMCA-YWCA from 1964 to 1975. Friday recalls working with her through the years of student political activity in Chapel Hill and reflects on the place of the Y in university life. About forty minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2007, through Documenting the American South.
Program for the inauguration of C. D. Spangler Jr. as president of the University of North Carolina system, held in Chapel Hill on October 17, 1986, with an itinerary of exhibits and musical events. 26 images.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
A television program produced by Shannon Vickery and first aired on November 13, 1997, with Chapel Hill as its setting. It deals with the first Medical News Reporting Symposium, held in Chapel Hill that year, to Tom Linden, to C. D. Spangler Jr., and to the curriculum at East Carolina University, along with the schools of journalism and public health at the University of North Carolina.
Three presidents of the University of North Carolina system, Clemmie Dixon Spangler, Molly Broad and William Friday, together at UNC-Chapel Hill's University Award ceremonies in 1997. Photographed by Hugh Morton.
At Michael Hooker's inauguration as chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill on 12 October 1995, UNC system president C. D. Spangler speaks. Color 35 mm negative by Hugh Morton.
Adam Lucas marks one hundred years of basketball at the University of North Carolina in this illustrated history, published by UNC Press in 2010 in association with the athletics department. Chapters follow the program from the game's arrival on campus and the 'White Phantoms' of the Southern Conference through the founding of the ACC, the 1957 season, Dean Smith's changes to the game and the title seasons of 1982, 1993, 2005 and 2009, closing with a century of statistics. 289 pages.
Rick Jackson's true crime history of Chapel Hill, published by The History Press in 2023, in 28 short chapters. Cases include the Efland bank robbery, the execution of John Henry Breeze, the unsolved murder of Suellen Evans, the killing at the Internationalist Bookstore and the death of Eve Carson.
The Duke and North Carolina basketball rivalry written together by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky, the latter a sports reporter who has followed it since his student days at UNC. The book opens with the 2014 season and moves through recruiting battles old and new, 'Black and Blue Sunday', 'Blood and Roses', and chapters on the rivalry's heroes, leaders and teachers, with a foreword by Jay Bilas and a photo gallery. Published by Triumph Books in 2014, 289 pages.
H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.
Steven J. Tepper's chronicle of how the University of North Carolina marked its bicentennial in 1993 and 1994. An appendix reprints the University Day speeches of October 12, 1993, given by Paul Hardin, James B. Hunt Jr., C.D. Spangler, William C. Friday, Charles Kuralt and President Bill Clinton, plus bicentennial addresses by Li Lu, Francis S. Collins and Richard J. Richardson. Published by the university in Chapel Hill, 1998; 284 pages.
Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.
William D. Snider's history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1992. It runs 370 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.
Reviewed in History of Education Quarterly (1993), The Journal of Southern History (1993).
Twelve essays by novelist Daphne Athas (1923-2020) on the Chapel Hill she knew across the twentieth century. Subjects include Carrboro as 'the Paris of the Piedmont', philosopher Horace Williams, Betty Smith writing in Chapel Hill, Junius Scales, Ab Abernethy and the Intimate Bookshop, Richard Wright's visit, and a set of Chapel Hill murders. Published 2010, 243 pages with illustrations.
Scott Fowler gathers recollections from Carolina basketball players, decade by decade from the 1950s to the 2000s, organized around Roy Williams and the question in the title. Contributors include Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Brad Daugherty, Eric Montross, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Raymond Felton and Sean May, each entry giving position and playing years. Published 2010 by Triumph Books of Chicago, 270 pages, here as an e-book.
Archibald Henderson's history of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, its buildings and grounds from the founding in the 1790s onward. Henderson, a professor of mathematics and a prolific historian of the university, wrote it in the years around the university's sesquicentennial. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 412 pages with illustrations and bibliographical footnotes.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1949), South Atlantic Quarterly (1950).
Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.
Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “Choosing William Friday’s successor, 1985–1986.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/friday-successor-storyline-1985/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
