Gay Chapel Hill becomes visible, 1971–1974

Between 1971 and 1974 gay life in Chapel Hill came into the open. A Gay Liberation Front speaker addressed a UNC audience in 1971, and a Daily Tar Heel page on gay people that spring drew a state senator's bill against student-fee support of the paper. A student counseling service began counseling gay men, gay bars opened, and in 1974 a weekly rap group became the Carolina Gay Association, recognized by the University that September.

The events, date by date

Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.

March 17, 1971 A Gay Liberation Front spokesman speaks openly on gay liberation at UNC James Coleman, a spokesman for the Gay Liberation Front, spoke in Gerrard Hall during the Socialist Liberation Festival on the discrimination homosexuals faced in jobs, schools, the police and the courts, and on the movement's call to 'come out.' The Daily Tar Heel had reported beforehand that the talk would be the first time gay liberation was discussed openly on the UNC campus. Place: Gerrard Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill · Also named: James ColemanSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, March 18, 1971, p. 1

April 29, 1971 A state senator files a bill to end student-fee support of The Daily Tar Heel after its page on gay life Sen. Julian Allsbrook of Halifax introduced a bill to bar the state universities from making students pay for student publications through activity fees, saying he acted after the April 23 Daily Tar Heel 'Insight' page on gay people in Chapel Hill, with a photograph of two men embracing, which he called pornography. Editor Harry Bryan defended the page, the Student Legislature and the Young Republicans passed resolutions backing the paper, and in June the Senate Higher Education Committee reported the bill unfavorably. People: William C. Friday Place: The Daily Tar Heel, Carolina Union, Chapel Hill · Also named: Julian Allsbrook, Harry BryanSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, April 30, 1971, p. 1

1972 to early 1973 The Pegasus, a gay bar, operates in the former Cave on West Franklin Street In 1972 the basement bar once called the Cave, under the Record and Tape Center near Carrboro, ran as the Pegasus, a gay bar with a jukebox and a back room for dancing. A letter in the Daily Tar Heel called it defunct by February 1973. Place: 452 1/2 West Franklin Street (basement under the Record and Tape Center), Chapel HillSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, June 15, 1972, p. 6 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, February 5, 1973, p. 15; The Daily Tar Heel, February 14, 1973, p. 6

By January 1972 The student Human Sexuality Information and Counseling Service begins counseling gay men The Human Sexuality Information and Counseling Service, a student peer counseling service in the Student Union, began counseling gay male students. By mid-January 1972 all 26 of its counselors had been trained in counseling on homosexuality and two gay counselors had joined the staff, so each client could see a gay or non-gay counselor as he preferred. The service later kept the Carolina Gay Association's library in its Suite B office. Place: Student Union, University, Chapel HillSearch the index · Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, UNC), August 1976, p. 6 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, January 18, 1972, p. 1

January 1, 1973 The Electric Company, Chapel Hill's first disco, turns to a gay clientele After a private party to gauge interest, The Electric Company, described as Chapel Hill's first disco bar, began catering to gay customers and became the first local bar to draw many lesbians. Lambda's 1978 history of local bars said Blueberry Hill later drew its crowd away and that A Southern Season had since taken over its building. Place: Chapel Hill (building occupied by A Southern Season in 1978)Search the index · Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, UNC), November 1978, p. 4

by March 4, 1974 A Gay Awareness Rap Group for men and women meets weekly in Chapel Hill The Daily Tar Heel's calendar listed weekly Monday night meetings of a Gay Awareness Rap Group for gay men and women at 218 Pittsboro Street, and on March 29 the Gay Rap Group put on a People's Coffee House with entertainment and refreshments at 306 East Rosemary Street, open to everyone. Place: 218 Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: East Rosemary StreetSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, March 4, 1974, p. 2

September 6, 1974 The Carolina Gay Association forms Students who had met weekly since February 6, 1974, when the Gay Awareness Rap Group first gathered at the Newman Catholic Student Center, won recognition from UNC's Dean of Student Affairs on September 6, 1974 and took the name Carolina Gay Association. The group met in Craige dormitory and in 1976 sponsored the first Southeastern Gay Conference. Place: Chapel HillThe Daily Tar Heel, September 10, 1974, p. 1: recognition of the Carolina Gay Association · Also: Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, UNC), October 1, 1984, p. 1

Places in this storyline

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 1 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

Carolina Union (Frank Porter Graham Student Union) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
The Daily Tar Heel Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 1 event here

All places and the county map →

Reading on the places and people in this storyline

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.

About The Daily Tar Heel · named in one of this story’s entries

Print news and raise hell: the Daily Tar Heel and the evolution of a modern university

Zogry, Kenneth Joel · 2018

Kenneth Joel Zogry's history of the Daily Tar Heel, the UNC Chapel Hill student newspaper, published by UNC Press in 2018, 361 pages with illustrations, online edition. Zogry follows the paper from its 1893 start as organ of the Athletic Association through the eras his chapter titles name: 'Crack-brained professors and baby radicals' (1923 to 1941), 'The truth in eight-point type' (1941 to 1959) and 'A free press must prevail' (1971 to 1993).

Reviewed in The Southeastern Librarian (2018), American Journalism (2019), Journal of American History (2019), The Journal of Southern History (2019).

NC Cardinal UNC NC State NCCU Chapel Hill PL Methodist UNCSA CH Historical Society

Toward a conservative campus : a textual analysis of news coverage in the Carolina critic, the Carolina review, and the Daily tar heel since 1987

Sopp, Brian · 2007

Brian Sopp's 2007 textual analysis of news coverage in three Chapel Hill student publications, the Carolina Critic, the Carolina Review and the Daily Tar Heel, from 1987 onward. It concerns college student newspapers and periodicals in Chapel Hill. A piece of student research rather than a trade book, useful to anyone studying campus journalism and student politics at the university.

UNC

100th anniversary.

1993

Centennial edition of the Daily Tar Heel, the University of North Carolina student newspaper, produced at Chapel Hill in 1993 to mark one hundred years of publication. Jen Pilla is named as centennial edition editor. Topics include the paper's history along with college student newspapers and periodicals in Chapel Hill, which makes the issue a source for the paper's own record.

UNC

The rightish : the conservative editorial p(l)ag(u)e of the Tar Heel.

1984 · U.N.C. Committee to Liberate the Tar Heel

Conservative sheet aimed squarely at the campus daily, published in Chapel Hill from 1984 by a group calling itself the U.N.C. Committee to Liberate the Tar Heel, whose subtitle turns editorial page into editorial plague. Volumes measure 28 to 36 cm, and student political activity at the University of North Carolina runs through it.

UNC

Wider background: LGBTQ+ Life & Activism · the most widely held histories of the theme this storyline is filed under; they may not discuss it

Jane Crow: The Life of Pauli Murray

Rosenberg, Rosalind · 2017

Rosalind Rosenberg's 2017 biography of Pauli Murray (1910-1985), lawyer, poet and Episcopal priest, raised in Durham. Its six parts follow a Southern childhood, the move to New York, the 1938 application to the University of North Carolina that was refused because Murray was Black (the chapter is titled 'Members of your race are not admitted'), law school and the coining of the phrase Jane Crow, the Cold War years, the push toward 'an NAACP for women', and a late-life ordination. 494 pages with portraits.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2018).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO MURRAY ROS Duke NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL

Lightning Brown papers,

Brown, Lightning · 1983

Papers of Lightning Brown, a Chapel Hill activist for gay rights who was also the first openly gay person in North Carolina to run for public office. Most of the 1,500 items concern the 1984 elections: letters to and from public officials, articles and studies reflecting his work in the Democratic Party, on national legislation and on gay rights.

Duke

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill records, 1975-2014.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Center · 1975

Records of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Center at UNC, 1975 to 2014, about 900 items in 2 linear feet, in the University Archives at UNC, collection 40433. Student groups represented include the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, B-GLAD, and the Women's Forum of the Association of Women Students, with student housing at Chapel Hill also covered.

UNC

William Ruthrauff Amberson papers, 1919-1968; 1971

Amberson, William Ruthrauff, 1894- · 1915

William Ruthrauff Amberson, born 1894, left papers spanning 1919 to 1968 with a small run from 1971. The papers concern the University of Tennessee at Memphis and southern farm politics: the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union, the Delta Cooperative Farm and Providence Plantation in Mississippi, the Socialist Party, and figures such as Norman Thomas, Howard Kester and Pauli Murray. Part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 3862.

UNC

Michael R. Nelson papers, circa 1890-2012

Nelson, Michael R., 1963- · 1890

Roughly 2,000 items in 6.5 linear feet kept as the papers of Michael R. Nelson, born 1963, dated from about 1890 to 2012, collection 70140 in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC. Topics include politics and government in Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County, campaign paraphernalia, and gay activists and politicians in North Carolina, naming Joseph A. Herzenberg, 1941 to 2007.

UNC

Joseph A. Herzenberg papers 1883-2006.

Herzenberg, Joseph A., 1941-2007 · 1883

Twenty linear feet of papers from Joseph A. Herzenberg, 1941 to 2007, about 2,500 items dated 1883 to 2006 in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 5367. Diaries are among the formats. The work describes a historian and political activist in Chapel Hill, campaign paraphernalia and Democratic Party politics, and gay activists and gay politicians in North Carolina.

UNC

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John Seelye papers,

Seelye, John · 1862

Papers of John Seelye (1931 to 2015), literary scholar and Penguin Classics editor, who taught American literature at Berkeley, Connecticut, UNC Chapel Hill, Dartmouth and Florida. The 26,100 items (46.7 linear feet) run from 1862 to 2015, mostly 1955 to 2007, in series of correspondence and contracts, academic files, research files, writings and personal papers, with Melville and Mark Twain among his subjects.