Storyline · 1915–2017
The families of Sol and Henry Weil of Goldsboro founded the Weil lectures in 1915, and that year former president William Howard Taft spent three days in Chapel Hill, a visit a photograph caption calls the inaugural Weil Lecture. Later lecturers included the Kansas editor William Allen White in 1925, Will W. Alexander of the Commission on Cooperation between the Races in 1929, and the historian Charles A. Beard in 1933, who drew crowds the Weekly said no speaker had drawn in many years. Henry A. Wallace spoke in 1937 and Eleanor Roosevelt, on the United Nations, in 1950. Roy Wilkins's 1972 lecture drew a student protest over American companies in South Africa, and Eugene Genovese spoke in 1976 and Julian Bond in 1978. Jimmy Carter gave the lecture in 1984, Cornel West in 1993, and William J. Barber II in 2017.
The Weil lectures were founded in 1915 by the families of Sol and Henry Weil of Goldsboro. That year former president William Howard Taft spent three days in Chapel Hill as Edward Kidder Graham's guest, lecturing on politics and the presidency; a photograph caption calls the visit the inaugural Weil Lecture. Kansas editor William Allen White gave the lectures on April 3, 4 and 5, 1925, under the title "Some Cycles of Cathay." Will W. Alexander of the Commission on Cooperation between the Races gave them in December 1929, with announced topics including "Truth and Fiction about the Old South." The historian Charles A. Beard spoke on 'What Is National Interest' in Gerrard Hall on February 21 to 23, 1933, drawing crowds the Weekly said no speaker had drawn in many years. George Soule, editor of the New Republic, opened his series 'Liberty in the Modern World' on April 4, 1935, as part of the Human Relations Institute. Henry A. Wallace began his lectures on April 1, 1937 with a talk on the impact of technology. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke on the United Nations from January 31 to February 2, 1950. On April 11, 1972 about 20 students of the Black Support Committee for African Liberation demonstrated before and after NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins's lecture in Memorial Hall and took over the question period to press him on his support for American companies staying in South Africa; Wilkins said conditions would be worse if the companies left. In February 1976 the historian Eugene Genovese, author of Roll, Jordan, Roll, spoke on slavery and modern world politics, setting slavery and emancipation in the growth of world capitalism from the Haitian revolution to the Civil War. Georgia state senator Julian Bond, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, gave the 1978–79 lecture that November, warning that many civil rights gains of the 1960s were in danger of being "refought and lost." Jimmy Carter gave the lecture on October 23, 1984, Cornel West in Carroll Hall in 1993, and William J. Barber II spoke on the morality of citizenship in 2017.
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 them all.
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.
Scott Madry's recollections of the student tech crew at Memorial Hall, the University of North Carolina's auditorium in Chapel Hill, presented under the banner of the Carolina Union, the campus student union. Published in Chapel Hill in 2021.
Catharine Carter photographed the rebuilding of Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina between 2002 and 2005, and twelve of the images were issued in 2005 as limited edition lithographic prints, numbered and signed by her, in a portfolio with text and illustrations.
Patrick S. Wooten's 1992 guide to the memorial tablets in Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, identifying the people commemorated there. Subjects include university biography, alumni and Confederate rosters, so the volume doubles as a name list for anyone tracing individuals honored on the walls. One volume in various foliations with illustrations.
Robert W. Winston's 1939 address on Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina and the memorial tablets set in its walls, given when tablets honoring Colonel Robert Bingham, Ambassador Robert Worth Bingham and Senator Matt W. Ransom were accepted. Printed at Chapel Hill, it records how those tablets came to be placed in the hall.
R. W. Foister of Chapel Hill published this postcard of the university library among the campus trees, about 1905. The building is the one now known as Hill Hall.
The Carnegie Library at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, on an undated card. Andrew Carnegie's library grants paid for hundreds of such buildings.
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.
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.
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. “The Weil lectures on American citizenship, 1915–2017.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/weil-lectures-storyline-1915/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
