Storyline · 1986
In 1986 opposition to the Shearon Harris nuclear plant reached Orange County's elections and town boards. Two challengers who had spoken against the plant unseated county commissioners in the June runoff, and Chapel Hill and Orange County passed resolutions asking that it be converted to another fuel. Restaurants and writers held benefits, students formed a campus chapter of the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris, and opponents held a vigil when the plant was granted a low-power license in October.
In the first week of June 1986 Stephen Halkiotis, principal of Orange County High School, and John Hartwell, a computer engineer from Eno Township, unseated Orange County commissioners A. Ben Lloyd Jr., an Efland dairy farmer, and C. Norman Walker in the Democratic runoff, 4,914 and 4,151 votes to 3,548 and 2,936. Both winners had spoken against the Shearon Harris nuclear plant, and Lloyd said rural conservatives were left without a seat on the board. On June 9, before a standing-room crowd, the Chapel Hill Town Council voted 8 to 1 to ask that the plant be converted to coal or gas and unanimously passed a second resolution stating grave concern about its safety. It also asked the state and Carolina Power & Light to draw up an evacuation plan that included Chapel Hill, which Durham's and Carrboro's resolutions had not. At the same meeting a speaker announced the formation of Disabled Persons Opposed to Shearon Harris. On June 17, under pressure from the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris, the Orange County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution calling for the plant to be converted to a non-nuclear fuel; the Daily Tar Heel counted it with similar resolutions from Durham, Carrboro, Hillsborough and Chapel Hill.
Over the summer La Residence, Pyewacket, Crook's Corner and other Chapel Hill restaurants sponsored a madrigal-style dinner that raised about $3,000 for the fight against the plant. On July 20 Joe Ashby Porter, Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Lee Smith, Garrett Epps and Elizabeth Spencer read from their work at a $50-a-plate benefit dinner at the Hardback Cafe that raised over $2,000 for the coalition; organizers turned away 30 ticket requests because of the room's fire-code limit. On August 26 a UNC chapter of the coalition held its first meeting in the Carolina Union to rally campus opposition before the plant was due to load fuel on September 1. Speakers covered the plant's cost, which had risen from $1.4 billion for four reactors to $3.6 billion for one, the medical burden of an accident and the adequacy of CP&L's evacuation plan. On October 24, the afternoon the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted Carolina Power & Light a low-power license for the plant, coalition members held a vigil in front of the Franklin Street post office, and a coalition spokesman said the group would ask the federal court in Raleigh to stop the loading of fuel.
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 the most widely held histories of the theme it is filed under, so they may not discuss it. 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.
Albert Coates's own account of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina, which he founded, subtitled 'out of a classroom in Chapel Hill' and published in 1981. The 303 pages trace the institute's history and its role in educating North Carolina's public officials.
William J. Billingsley's history of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 North Carolina statute that barred known Communists from speaking on state campuses, and the fight over it at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The subtitle sets the scope: race, politics and the public university in sixties North Carolina. It treats academic freedom, anti-communist movements and free speech in the state. University of Georgia Press, 1999, 308 pages with eight pages of plates.
Reviewed in Academe (2000), The American Historical Review (2001), The Journal of Southern History (2001), Journal of American History (2001), The Journal of Politics (2001).
Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III on the 1950 Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina, in which Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, lost to Willis Smith after a campaign marked by race-baiting. Primaries, elections and race relations in the state are its subjects. Published by UNC Press in 1990, 356 pages with illustrations.
Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1991), The American Historical Review (1991), Journal of American History (1991), The Journal of Southern History (1992).
Ruth Blackwelder's study of political and intellectual leadership in Orange County and North Carolina from 1752 to 1861, published in Charlotte by W. Loftin in 1961. Topics include state politics and government, intellectual life before the Civil War, and county genealogy. It runs 216 pages with illustrations and a bibliography. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.
Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.
Howard E. Covington Jr.'s biography of Albert Coates (1896-1989), the law professor who founded the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina and led it through its early years. Topics include Coates as a law teacher and the institute's history as a center for the study of public administration in Chapel Hill. Published in 2010 by the University Library at Chapel Hill, 322 pages with 32 pages of plates.
Warren Ashby's biography of Frank Porter Graham (1886-1972), president of the University of North Carolina from 1930 to 1949 and later a United States senator. Published by Blair in 1981, x and 386 pages with sixteen leaves of plates and a bibliography.
Reviewed in The American Historical Review (1981), Journal of American History (1981).
Hugh Talmage Lefler and Paul W. Wager's history of Orange County across its first two centuries, 1752 to 1952, prepared for the county's bicentennial. It covers government and politics, biography and the county's families, and doubles as a genealogical reference. Published in Chapel Hill by the Orange Printshop in 1953, 389 pages with illustrations and an index; this copy is a later reprint.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1954).
Michael Thomas Smith's biography of Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick, the University of North Carolina chemistry professor dismissed in 1856 after he declared support for the antislavery presidential candidate John C. Fremont. Published by University of Delaware Press in 2003, 216 pages with illustrations. Topics include abolitionists and dissenters in North Carolina, the antislavery movement in the state, and the university's biography before 1962.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2005).
The papers of Willie Person Mangum, 1792 to 1861, a lawyer, judge and United States senator from the part of Orange County that later became Durham County. Five volumes of correspondence published by the State Department of Archives and History beginning in 1950, arranged by date from 1807 to 1894, with illustrations, portraits and folding maps. A source for antebellum North Carolina and national politics, the Whig Party and the Mangum family.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1951), Journal of American History (1951), The Journal of Southern History (1953), Journal of American History (1953), The Journal of Southern History (1954), The Journal of Southern History (1955), The Journal of Southern History (1957), Journal of American History (1957), The American Historical Review (1957).
Address by Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough on 24 August 1924, marking the parish's hundredth anniversary. Printed in Durham in 1925 at the vestry's order, with a foreword by the rector. Cheshire discusses George Micklejohn, William Mercer Green and Moses Ashley Curtis.
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. “Opposing the Shearon Harris nuclear plant, 1986.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/shearon-harris-storyline-1986/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
