Storyline · 1973
In the fall of 1973, after the firing of the Watergate special prosecutor, more than 700 people rallied in the Pit for President Nixon's impeachment, student body presidents launched a statewide drive, and most voters in a campus referendum said Nixon should resign or be removed. Senators Sam Ervin and George McGovern spoke at UNC that fall.
Senator Sam Ervin, chairman of the Senate Watergate committee, gave the University Day address on October 12, 1973. Four days after the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox, more than 700 people rallied in the Pit on October 24 to hear state AFL-CIO president Wilbur Hobby, law professor Daniel H. Pollitt, aldermanic candidate Gerry Cohen and Student Body President Ford Runge call for President Nixon's impeachment, and organizers gathered more than 2,000 signatures for a telegram. On November 1 the student body presidents of UNC, Duke, N.C. State and UNC-Greensboro launched a statewide student drive asking Nixon to resign or Congress to impeach him. In a YM-YWCA referendum on November 6, 1,476 of the 1,704 students, faculty and staff who voted chose a statement that the President should resign or be removed. That month the law school declined a Hickory law firm's request for the names of law students who had signed an impeachment petition, and on November 28 Sen. George McGovern told a Carmichael Auditorium audience that impeachment was the only honorable remedy.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
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.
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.
A ceremony, possibly a graduation, in Carmichael Gymnasium and Auditorium at UNC-Chapel Hill, photographed by Hugh Morton between 1966 and 1972 on color sheet film. UNC President William Friday and Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson are seated in the rows behind the speaker.
Hugh Morton photographed a basketball game in Carmichael Auditorium at the University of North Carolina for this postcard he published, with players in blue and white, cheerleaders and a crowd in the stands. Printed as a Plastichrome by Colorpicture of Boston in the 1960s.
William Donald Carmichael Auditorium on the UNC campus in an undated exterior photograph, from the UNC Campus binder of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection (CHHS.002).
Seventh of nine Southern Oral History Program interviews with Daniel H. Pollitt, a professor at the UNC School of Law. Recorded April 5, 1991, by Ann McColl, this session of just under an hour is devoted to the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 act of the General Assembly that barred Communists and certain other speakers from state campuses, and to the fight over it at Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s, in which Pollitt took part. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.
Third session of the nine-part Pollitt series, recorded December 13, 1990, by Ann McColl, an hour and a quarter long. Daniel H. Pollitt, who joined the UNC law faculty in 1957, picks up the portrait of his colleagues begun in the previous interview: who they were, what they did in the classroom and beyond it, and how the school changed as Black students and women entered it. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Race, sports and student protest at UNC are the subjects of this fourth interview with law professor Daniel H. Pollitt, recorded February 15, 1991, by Ann McColl for the Southern Oral History Program. Pollitt discusses the integration of Carolina athletics, including basketball player Charlie Scott, the university's first Black scholarship athlete, the discrimination Black athletes met, student activism from the late 1950s through the 1960s, and the Campus Y. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Second interview in the Pollitt series, recorded November 28, 1990, by Ann McColl, and the shortest at about 35 minutes. Daniel H. Pollitt explains how he came to join the UNC law faculty in 1957. Before that he had declined a loyalty oath demanded by another university, and the interview covers that episode and his move to Chapel Hill. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library as part of the Southern Oral History Program collection in Documenting the American South.
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. “Watergate and impeachment at UNC, 1973.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/watergate-impeachment-unc-storyline-1973/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
