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Black Life & Civil Rights

Community life, schools, segregation, activism, churches, and oral histories.

In briefBlack communities in Orange County built schools, churches, libraries, and neighborhoods such as Northside and Pine Knolls. Their cultural life includes George Moses Horton’s poetry and Elizabeth Cotten’s music. Political organizing has shaped the county through the freedom movement of the 1960s, campus workers’ strikes, and the elections of Howard Lee and Carrboro’s first Black officials. The storylines trace these achievements alongside histories of enslavement, racial-terror lynching, the killing of James Cates in 1970, and struggles to desegregate schools and the university.

1,058 works about Black Life & Civil Rights are indexed here. 53 held at OCPL →

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Events and storylines

Named events and storylines the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.

Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipationFreedpeople’s schools, the Quaker Freedmen’s School in Hillsborough, Black churches, mutual-aid societies, landownership, and the institutions that later carried Lincoln High and the civil-rights movement The Orange County Negro Public Library and the struggle for equal library service, 1936–1960sFrom the school library that served Black Hillsborough in 1936 to the building Black residents paid for, dedicated in 1951, with separate service still running in 1962; when it ended is not yet documented Journey of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, 1947The interracial bus ride whose riders were arrested in Chapel Hill and convicted in Orange County, formally cleared in 2022 Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1965Sit-ins, marches and the Holy Week Fast that desegregated Chapel Hill’s businesses School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1954–1970Lincoln High, Cedar Grove School and the staged integration of the local schools Black student activism at UNCThe Black Student Movement and the campaigns it led from 1967 on

Show all 76 events and storylines

Rogers Road environmental justiceA historic Black community, the county landfill beside it, and the long campaign for sewer service and the Greene Tract Howard Lee’s campaigns for mayor, Congress, lieutenant governor and the state Senate, 1968–1992The first Black mayor of a majority-white Southern town since Reconstruction Carrboro’s Black political firstsFrom Braxton Foushee, the first Black alderman in 1969, and Robert Drakeford, the first Black mayor in 1977, to the first Black town manager and police chief and Barbara Foushee, the first Black woman mayor, in 2023 Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and CarrboroNorthside, Pine Knolls, Tin Top and Pottersfield in Chapel Hill, the Lloyd–Broad neighborhood in Carrboro, and their churches, schools and businesses Racial-terror lynchings in Orange CountySix people are documented as lynched in Orange County: Washington Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow, Daniel Morrow, Wright Malone and Cyrus Guy in 1869, and Manly McCauley in 1898. The county’s 2022 resolution apologized and approved markers without naming them Killing of James Cates, 1970The Chapel Hill man killed in the Pit at UNC in November 1970; headings are still being sought Elizabeth Keckly in HillsboroughKeckly’s enslaved years in the Burwell household and her memoir’s testimony about them, including the abuse by schoolmaster William Bingham Orange County’s Black high schools: the Training School, Lincoln and CentralThe Orange County Training School and Lincoln High in Chapel Hill and Central High in Hillsborough, the county’s high schools for Black students until desegregation in the late 1960s Desegregating the University of North Carolina, 1933–1955Five Black students began law school classes on June 22, 1951, after the courts barred the university from refusing them; the first Black undergraduates, the Frasier brothers and John Brandon, followed in 1955 The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964Sit-ins, marches, and mass arrests over segregated businesses, from the summer of 1963 through the Holy Week Fast of 1964 UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996The Black cafeteria workers who led the two walkouts of 1969, Mary Smith and Elizabeth Brooks among them, with the Black Student Movement as their ally, and the housekeepers who organised in the 1990s The movement for a freestanding Black Cultural Center, 1990–1994Students, faculty, staff, and athletes campaigned for a building of its own, the struggle that led to the Sonja Haynes Stone Center Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin TopChapel Hill’s historic Black neighborhoods as their residents tell them: the Marian Cheek Jackson Center’s Northside Stories, the churches, the schools, the businesses, and the pressure of a growing town UNC housekeepers’ movement, 1990–1996The Housekeepers Association’s campaign for pay, respect, and a grievance process, settled in 1996 Black workers and campus laborFrom the enslaved and hired laborers of the university’s first century to the staff of the affirmative-action era: the cooks, janitors, laundresses, and grounds crews whose work ran the campus, mostly unnamed in its records Segregation and access to medical careDurham’s Lincoln Hospital, separate clinics and hospital floors, and the steps to the desegregation of North Carolina Memorial Hospital in 1965 The Hargraves Center and Chapel Hill’s Negro Community CenterThe community center begun for Black residents of Chapel Hill in 1939, finished by the Navy as quarters for the B-1 Band, opened in 1945 under an all-Black board, and renamed for William M. Hargraves in 1973 Black community health clubs, 1944–1947The health clubs Black residents of Chapel Hill and Hillsboro organized during and after the Second World War: house-to-house surveys, clean-up campaigns, and the Hillsboro club’s community center Freedom and free people of color in the county court, 1791–1817Emancipation petitions and decrees before the Orange County court, the names the freed took, and free people of color whose liberty the court upheld when they were offered for sale or jailed as runaways Free children of color and the apprentice law, 1786–1864How the county court bound out the children of free families of color, kept some with their mothers or released them from masters, and hired out a boy held in jail to pay his own fees The Pearsall Plan in Orange County, 1956–1961The 1956 state amendment that let localities close schools rather than integrate them: the debate in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, Representative Umstead’s support and his proposal for biracial committees, and a county vote that approved the plan while Chapel Hill voted it down Central High School’s crowding, fire and rebuilding, 1956–1960Hillsborough’s high school for Black pupils in its last years under segregation: the crowding, the borrowed lodge rooms parents protested, the new gymtorium and classrooms, the February 1958 fire that destroyed the main building, and the building that replaced it The Revill family and the county court, 1790–1833A free family of color whose children the Orange County court bound out across three generations, often to prominent men: the bindings, a youth said to have been sold, a girl taken from a master who mistreated her, and Susan Revill’s 1826 habeas corpus before Judge Thomas Ruffin Zedekiah Husbands, from bound boy to master, 1813–1837A free boy of color bound out in 1813 who grew up to be a millwright, was refused a boy’s apprenticeship, went to the Superior Court, and became the boy’s master, and who bought land on the Eno The Mayo children and the county court, 1828–1853A free family of color, written Mayho, Mayhoe and Mayo, whose children the county court bound, moved between masters, returned to their mother, hired out for their blind grandfather and at last discharged White Cross School: merger votes, Black families’ transfers and the closing, 1958–1961The western Orange school district that three times voted not to join the Chapel Hill schools: the merger elections, the long bus rides of its Black pupils, their families’ requests to attend White Cross School, and the county board’s decision to close it Building Orange High School, 1960–1964How the county board planned and built one high school for northern Orange: the 6-3-3 plan, the Latta land, the 1961 bonds and the architect, the Aycock fight over consolidation, and the opening of Orange High and Orange Junior High in 1963 Chapel Hill’s first public housing, 1961–1969Chapel Hill’s road to its first public housing: the human relations committee’s call for action, the 1962 housing code and housing authority, the fights over sites in 1964, and the first units at Craig-Gomains and Lindsay Street Chapel Hill’s schools leave West Franklin Street, 1963–1969How the Chapel Hill schools sold their downtown tract on West Franklin Street and moved out: the search for new sites, the $1 million sale, the coed dormitory and shops that took the land, and the new junior high and integrated high school Orange County’s antipoverty program and JOCCA, 1964–1982How the county’s governments took up the fight against poverty in 1964: the delays over Community Action, Inc., a biracial corporation for Chapel Hill’s racial and economic problems, the town boards’ votes and appointments, and the county’s advisory committee for the federal program Cedar Grove School’s road to accreditation, 1956–1961The five-year effort by parents at Cedar Grove School, the Black elementary school in the far north of the county, to win state accreditation: their requests to the county board, the new cafeteria and classrooms, the state’s 1958 refusal and the 1961 approval The 1898 white supremacy campaign in Orange CountyThe 1898 election in Orange County as the papers reported it: the Populists’ silver union, the Democratic and Populist tickets, the lynching of Manly McCauley near Chapel Hill, the new voters registered, and the Democrats’ white supremacy appeal on election eve The 1915 sanitary survey of Orange CountyThe U.S. Public Health Service’s house-to-house sanitary survey of Orange County in 1915 and what the county did alongside it: Hillsboro’s privy ordinance, the women’s Sanitation League, the work through Black churches, privies at the schools, and the boards’ thanks Orange County’s first draft, 1917Orange County’s part in the first draft of the First World War: registration day in June 1917, the exemption board, the printed list of registrants, the county’s quota of 141, the first men summoned and sent to Camp Jackson, and the Labor Day dinners Liberty Loans in Orange County, 1917–1919How Orange County bought war bonds in the five Liberty Loans: Paul C. Collins’s men’s committees and the county’s four banks, the bonfires at Efland and Hillsborough, the women’s committees under Harriet M. Berry, the honor flags, and the county’s totals in each loan Chapel Hill’s movie houses and the Pickwick fire, 1916–1924The picture shows of Chapel Hill and Carrboro from the Tar Heel Theatre and the Pickwick in 1916 to Henry Guthrie’s picture house, the parish-house shows for children, the Pickwick fire and rebuilding in 1924, and the Standard, opened by and for Black residents Chapel Hill’s nurse for Black residents, 1924–1941The public health nurse who worked among Chapel Hill’s Black residents from 1924: her hiring by the Community Club, the seal money, town share and Black residents’ share that paid her, her clinics and classes, and the canvasses Black citizens organized for her salary Chapel Hill’s sewers and the Bolin Creek plant, 1923–1944How Chapel Hill extended its sewers in the 1920s: the small bond issues, engineer W. C. Olsen’s plan for a Bolin Creek interceptor and disposal plant, the plant site, a downstream owner’s suit, the Church Street lines, and the 1926 contest with Carrboro for ditch diggers The women’s legislative program, 1927The women’s legislative program of 1927 as Chapel Hill followed it: the League of Women Voters’ convention at the Carolina Inn, the Community Club’s bills and its letters to Orange County’s legislators, the child labor bill, and the $2,000 for the Efland home West Franklin Street paving and its Black homeowners, 1926–1941How Chapel Hill paved West Franklin Street on assessments and what the debt meant for its Black homeowners: the 1926 street program and contract, the bonds of 1927 and 1928, the relief committee, the Duke legal aid clinic, and the federal home loans of 1934 Orange County’s PWA school building program, 1935–1936How Orange County rebuilt its schools with Public Works Administration aid in 1935 and 1936: the application and approval, the county’s share cut and raised again, the Black schools in Chapel Hill and Hillsboro, the bonds, the rural additions and the new Chapel Hill high school Chapel Hill’s PWA sewers, incinerator and streets, 1936–1937Chapel Hill’s PWA-aided town works of 1936 and 1937: the $21,000 grant, the bonds sold at the lowest rate the town had paid, the southwest sewer and pumping station, the new incinerator in Strowd’s Lowgrounds, the higher tax rate and the street surfacing Social Security comes to Orange County, 1937–1938How the Social Security programs came to Orange County in 1937: the new welfare board and superintendent, the welfare fund and the higher county tax rate, the first checks to the aged, dependent children and the blind, the growing caseload, and the child welfare service of 1938 Selective service in Orange County, 1940–1946How the draft worked in Orange County from 1940 to the end of the war: the draft board and its first registration, the first volunteers sent to Fort Bragg, the later registrations, the Chapel Hill examining board, the farm deferments and the final count of men drafted Chapel Hill’s street bonds and the state streets, 1937–1941How Chapel Hill paid for hard-surfaced streets from 1937 to 1941: the last of the PWA street surfacing, the $16,000 curb-and-gutter bonds the debt-limitation amendment put to a vote, the 1941 street and fire apparatus bonds, and the state’s taking over of three streets The drought and forest fires of fall 1941The dry fall of 1941 in and around Chapel Hill: the drought and October heat that pushed the pipeline from University Lake to its limit, the University power plant cut loose from Duke Power to escape the power curtailment, and the forest fires fought by the Black CCC crews St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Hillsborough, 1823–1854How Hillsborough’s Episcopalians organized St. Matthew’s parish and built its brick church: Thomas Ruffin’s gift of land, the church of 1825 and 1826 and its consecration, William Mercer Green’s rectorship, the gallery for Black worshippers, the conventions held there and Ruffin’s deed of 1854 Raising Old East and building Old West and Gerrard Hall, 1821–1837How the University raised Old East a story and built Old West and Gerrard Hall to William Nichols’s designs: the trustees’ vote of about 1821, the enslaved men who did much of the work, the settled accounts, the naming of Gerrard Hall and its completion in 1837 The county schools under Superintendent James L. Currie, 1882–1889How the county’s public schools ran under Superintendent James L. Currie from 1882 to 1889: the white and Black teachers’ associations and institutes, the new Board of Education of 1885, the school reports showing short terms and unequal pay, and Currie’s resignation in 1889 The killing of student Jacob Freeze and the trials, 1886–1887How the killing of University student Jacob A. Freeze at Chapel Hill in October 1886 went through the courts: the clash at Jack Barbee’s house, the indictment of five Black men, the manslaughter convictions at Hillsborough, a failed jail break and the trip to the penitentiary Hillsborough’s downtown fires of 1888 and the rebuildingHow downtown Hillsborough burned twice in 1888 and was rebuilt: the March fire that took eight wooden buildings near the court house, the new buildings for Israel Turner and S. T. Smith, the November fire that burned the Recorder office, and H. L. Parish’s new brick store Chapel Hill Methodists build on Franklin Street, 1878–1889How Chapel Hill’s Methodists moved to Franklin Street: the lot bought from the Longs in 1878, the women’s festival of 1881, the vote to build in 1885, the church raised under the Rev. Mr. Griffith, the old church sold to the American Missionary Association and the dedication of 1889 Hillsborough’s public school and its first schoolhouses, 1891–1911How Hillsborough’s public school found a home of its own: the school in the Academy in 1891, the fight over the Female Academy lot, the first schoolhouse bought in 1901, the new building of 1903, the West Hill school and the high school’s growing rolls Hillsborough as the southern army’s base after Camden, 1780How Hillsborough served as the southern army’s base in 1780: de Kalb’s halt, Gates’s regrouping of the army after Camden, the General Assembly and its Board of War, the courthouse and church turned to army use, the crowded town, the march to Salisbury and Greene’s arrival Chapel Hill after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., April 1968How Chapel Hill and the University answered the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968: the Black Student Movement’s memorial service and march, the mayor’s proclamation and the early closing downtown, the vigil and memorial services, the mourning walkout of April 9 and the proposed King committee The Black Student Movement’s demands, 1968–1969How the Black Student Movement’s 23 demands of December 1968 were pressed and answered: the visits to South Building, the Faculty Council’s recruiting steps, Chancellor Sitterson’s reply, the marches of February 1969, the BSM’s recognition and its own court, and the start of Afro-American Studies The Franklin Street vending ban, 1970–1974How Chapel Hill banned selling on Franklin Street’s sidewalks from 1970 to 1974: the merchants’ complaint about the flower ladies, the 1970 ban that spared flowers, the young vendors’ guild and lawsuit, the 1971 ban on all street selling and the flower ladies’ move into an alley, and the board’s refusal to reopen the sidewalks Black admissions at UNC: Bakke, Dean Renwick and the university affairs office, 1977–1983How Black admissions at UNC were argued over from 1977 to 1979: Dean Hayden Renwick’s appointment and report, the Bakke debate and the white applicants’ suit against the law school, Renwick’s charges and the University’s answers, the law school’s new policy, the Long Committee’s report and the larger Black freshman class of 1979 Chapel Hill answers the Greensboro killings and verdicts, 1979–1984How Chapel Hill answered the 1979 Greensboro killings and the trials that followed: the 1979 vigil and the march kept to the sidewalks, the November 1980 vigils, rally and petitions after the acquittals, the 1981 symposium, and the April 1984 rally, vigil and teach-in after the federal verdict Founding the Black Cultural Center, 1984–1989How UNC’s Black Cultural Center grew from a 1984 planning committee into a department of Student Affairs: the fight over space in the Carolina Union, the 1986 proposal and Boulton’s plan, the 1987 pre-opening, Margo Crawford’s start as director in 1988, the first programs and the Black Student Movement’s push for a permanent building The South Building shanties and sit-ins, 1986–1987How anti-apartheid students at UNC built shanties in front of South Building in March 1986 to press for divestment: the chancellor’s permission, the rallies, vigils and rival wall, the removal on April 7, the April sit-in, the November shanty and arrests, and the January 1987 acquittals Discrimination grievances in the UNC police, 1987–1994How University police officers contested the promotions in the department’s June 1987 reorganization: the grievances and the student rallies of 1987, the chancellor’s denial, Officer Keith Edwards’s appeals and hearings, the public safety director’s reassignment in 1989, the federal inquiries and the 1992 jury verdict The Office for Student Counseling and Dean Cell’s reappointment, 1988–1990How Black students at UNC pressed for the Office for Student Counseling after Dean Hayden Renwick left in 1988: the BSM’s demands, the South Building rally that kept the office whole, the search that chose Rosalind Fuse-Hall, and the 1989 protests against Dean Gillian Cell’s reappointment The Student Body statues, 1990–1993How Black students at UNC protested The Student Body, the Class of 1985’s bronze figures placed outside Davis Library in October 1990: the study-in, the lone vigils, the letter to Chancellor Hardin, the committee forum, the vandalism and racist messages, and the move to the Hamilton Hall courtyard in June 1991 Hate incidents and the Rally Against Hate at UNC, fall 1990How a run of hate incidents on the UNC campus in the fall of 1990, from a defaced Gantt poster and anti-gay signs to a racist note on the homecoming queen’s car and ’KKK’ on a University car, led to the Rally Against Hate, a march to South Building and a chancellor’s committee Searching for a new county landfill site, 1989–1992How Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County searched for a site for a new county landfill between 1989 and 1992: the search committee and the Landfill Owners Group, the 15 areas cut to four, the Duke Forest and Eubanks Road fights, the hearings and the 1992 vote to drill test holes The Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina, 1990–1993How UNC raised private money for its 200th anniversary in the Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina between 1990 and 1992: the trimmed goal, the quiet phase, the October 1991 opening with a $320 million goal and the Stone task force’s silent protest, and the gifts from Glaxo, First Union and the Johnston Trust Orange County’s civil rights ordinance, 1987–1994How Orange County came to a civil rights ordinance between 1987 and 1994: the Human Relations Commission, the draft ordinance and Sen. Howard Lee’s bill, the fight over its threatening-speech clause, the push to add sexual orientation, and the votes that brought it into Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough The city schools’ multicultural plan, sexual orientation and the gay literature unit, 1990–1994How the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools’ multicultural plan became a fight over sexual orientation between 1990 and 1994: the 1990 plan, the protests and petitions of 1993, the suspended gay and lesbian literature unit at Chapel Hill High, the revised mission statement and the board’s 1994 vote LaVonda Burnette and the school board recall, 1993–1994How LaVonda Burnette’s seat on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board was contested from her 1993 election to her 1994 resignation: her acknowledgment that she was not a UNC student, the board’s call to resign, the recall law, the charges, the petition drive and the NAACP’s objections

More storylines

Other storylines that include this theme, in date order. Each has its own page.

StorylineCedar Grove and rural northern Orange1755–2013 · 224 events · The crossroads communities north of Hillsborough grew around Eno Presbyterian, organized in 1755, the Hughes Academy of 1845, the Pope farm of the 1870s and Ellis Store of 1923, with nearly half the county’s Black-owned farms in Cedar Grove Township by 1940. The Schley Grange brought telephones in 1948, the schools were consolidated and desegregated in the 1960s, and the branch library came and went between 2004 and 2010. StorylineSlavery in Orange County1758–2021 · 239 events · Enslaved people worked the county’s farms, households, courts and university from the first settlements, building Old East and South Building, appearing in the 1790 tax list and the 1860 census count of more than 5,000, and passing through the courts in the Kirkland suit of 1804 and State v. Mann in 1829. Emancipation in 1865 freed about 6,000 people; the recovery of their graves and names, from Margaret Lane Cemetery to the university’s list of 119, has continued since 1987. StorylineMothers and the county court’s bindings, 1777–18681777–1868 · 38 events · The apprentice records show mothers acting for their children against the county court's power to bind them out. In 1777 the court returned Michael Riley to his mother, Mary Manakin. Mothers left without support asked the court to bind their children to masters they named, and free Black women did the same; in 1836 Jemima Mitchell set terms for her son's binding. Others went to law: Sarah Rickets's attorney won a writ of habeas corpus for her daughter in 1795. The court bound some children to their own mothers and returned others to them, and in 1868 it rescinded the binding of Calvin Godfrey because he was working for wages paid to his mother. StorylineThe county patrol, 1787–18291787–1829 · 14 events · From 1787 the Orange County court named patrols to watch the movements of enslaved people: patrols for Hillsborough, for the county's districts and, in 1799, for the neighborhood of the University. From at least 1807 the patrols were paid with a tax on each Black poll, and committees of justices drafted rules for them in 1809 and 1813. The court also licensed some enslaved men to carry guns on their owners' land, on the motions of men such as Richard Bennehan and Duncan Cameron, and twice ordered patrollers to give back guns they had taken. In 1829 Chapel Hill's first town ordinance set up a town patrol, and the county was still levying its patrol tax on Black polls. StorylineStudent disorder and the trustees' discipline, 1799–18191799–1819 · 15 events · In its first twenty years the University's students repeatedly defied its faculty and trustees, and the board answered with expulsions, new ordinances and in 1817 the courts. Students beat principal Gillaspie in 1799, about forty-five left in 1805 over an oath for monitors, an 1811 outbreak left no graduates, and in 1816 a forbidden oration brought expulsions and a powder bomb at a tutor's door. Duels, a stabbing at the 1804 ball and an 1818 beating of an enslaved man ran alongside, until in 1819 students had to hand in six pistols and two dirks. StorylineHillsborough Presbyterian Church, 1815–18371815–1837 · 12 events · The first pastor of Hillsborough's Presbyterian church strained relations with his congregation by advocating religious education, Sunday schools and preaching for enslaved people. The brick church on West Tryon Street was built with money from a lottery the state authorized, and in September 1816 Mary W. Burke, eight others and the Rev. John Knox Witherspoon organized the church. In 1823 the session admonished two members for trading in enslaved people without punishing them. Witherspoon ended seventeen years as pastor in 1833. In 1834 six enslaved women were baptized, and in 1835 Robert Burwell began a thirteen-year pastorate; the church bought a manse, and a Sessions House was built for the Sunday school.

Show all 46 storylines

StorylineRunaway apprentice notices, 1821–18671821–1867 · 19 events · From the 1820s masters placed notices in the Hillsborough Recorder and other papers when apprentices bound to them by the county court ran away. The notices gave the runaway's name and age, forbade anyone to harbor or employ them, and offered rewards, many of them five cents or a single cent, sometimes with 'no thanks' added; a few offered more, five dollars in 1837 for Ruffin Chavers, a boy of color, and ten dollars in 1862 for John Reeves, a trained tailor. Several of the runaways were youths of color, girls as well as boys, and many were nearly grown. In 1863 James M. Clark advertised an apprentice who had left while Clark was in the army, and in 1867 Thomas J. Anderson advertised for Joe Anderson, a Black bound boy of about fourteen. Each notice is the master's claim. StorylinePublic libraries in Orange County1822–2026 · 150 events · Orange County’s public libraries grew from the Franklin Library Society of 1822 and the free library counted at Hillsboro in 1910 to the Confederate Memorial Library of 1934, the Hyconeechee Regional Library of 1948, the Negro Public Library’s own building in 1951 and Chapel Hill’s town library in 1958. The county system that followed opened branches at Carrboro and Cedar Grove, a Main Library on Margaret Lane in 2010 and the Drakeford Library Complex in 2025, with the Friends of the library founded in 1981 along the way. StorylineChapel Hill's town government and its codes, 1829–18591829–1859 · 17 events · Chapel Hill's early town codes governed its streets and policed its Black residents, enslaved and free. On February 19, 1829 the commissioners adopted fifteen ordinances that divided white men into patrol companies, made white and Black men liable to work the streets, and barred enslaved people from the streets on Sundays and at night without a written pass. An act of 1851 incorporated the town under five elected commissioners. A revised code of March 19, 1859 fixed the village limits at about 839 acres, ordered officers to check the status of Black residents who claimed to be free, and barred Black people from the country from the streets after 4 p.m. on tax and election days. StorylineThe Burwell School and the Burwell household1837–1857 · 46 events · Anna Burwell opened a school for girls in Hillsborough in 1837 that ran until the family moved to Charlotte in 1857. In the same household Elizabeth Hobbs, later Elizabeth Keckly, was enslaved from 1835, beaten at Anna Burwell’s urging and subjected to years of sexual coercion before being sent back to Virginia in 1842; she bought her freedom in 1855. StorylineFarm labor in rural Orange County1859–2022 · 29 events · Tobacco spread from Washington Duke’s turn to the crop in 1859, and after emancipation many freedpeople worked the land as tenants and sharecroppers; the 1930 census counted tenants on about a third of the county’s farms. Farm Security Administration loans reached Black farmers from 1938, tenancy fell sharply in the 1950s, and by 2022 the census counted 36 migrant workers on the county’s farms. StorylineThe Freedmen’s Bureau at Hillsborough, 1865–1868August 1865–December 1868 · 100 events · After emancipation the county court went on binding out Black children, apprenticing them to masters, and the Freedmen's Bureau itself apprenticed some, among them Cadmus and Erasmus Webb in October 1865. From May 1866 to the end of 1868 the Bureau kept an office at Hillsborough for the sub-district of Orange, under Lt. Isaac Porter until the fall of 1867 and Lt. Thomas H. Hay from May 1868. It heard freedpeople's complaints over wages, crops and children, approved labor contracts, gave rations to destitute people white and Black, and helped freedpeople open schools. The court kept binding children through 1867, and in 1868 it rescinded bindings, among them Calvin Godfrey's because he was working for wages paid to his mother. StorylineBuilding the public schools, 1868–19201868–1920 · 231 events · After the Civil War Orange County organized its public schools by township and district, with separate schools for Black and white children under local school committees. In the 1880s and 1890s the county board formed new districts and counted its log and frame schoolhouses; after 1900 districts voted local taxes for graded schools for white children, eight rural schoolhouses went up in one school year, and a 1918–19 survey found white teachers earning a median $50 a month and Black teachers $35. StorylineThe revenue officers' killing of Henry McMannen, 18901890 · 6 events · On February 25, 1890 federal revenue officers searching for illicit stills shot Henry McMannen, a Black man, dead at his house in Little River Township. The officers said he had fired a shotgun at agent S. Kirkpatrick; others in the county said he was killed without cause, and the Rev. Sam P. Terry swore out murder warrants. Judge Armfield let the officers go after the sheriff gave them up to the U.S. marshal, and the Orange grand jury indicted five of them for murder. Federal Judge Dick freed all five by late April; the Observer wrote that the people would not be satisfied. In August the state dropped its charges against three of them. StorylineBlack Republicans and the county party, 1890–18971890–1897 · 8 events · Black Republicans in Orange County condemned the county's white Republicans for keeping every office and appointment, and in the 1890s they ran candidates of their own. In August 1890 a mass meeting called to order by Lisbon P. Berry nominated him for the state Senate, and a later meeting backed London A. Whitted for the House. The county convention endorsed its own slate, and one man named on it called it the "white Republican" convention. In 1892 Black men who said the party's "ring" had not treated them fairly nominated John M. Whitted, and in 1894 Swain Kirkland announced for the House. In 1897 Hillsborough elected Samuel L. Whitted, by the paper's account the first Black town commissioner. StorylineChapel Hill's volunteer fire company, 1898–19311898–1931 · 22 events · From about 1898 a volunteer company fought Chapel Hill's fires, at first with two hand reels and hose lent by the University, and more than once a building burned where no hydrant was near. In 1921 the town built a brick municipal building and fire house and received an American La France motor truck. In June 1922, with the nearest hydrant almost half a mile away, fire destroyed the Orange County Training School, the county's school for Black students. In 1923 the company hosted the state's firemen at a barbecue, and the state association elected Chief John L. Foister its president. After officers missed an alarm, the aldermen put a full-time fireman on duty in 1928. In 1931 the bricklayer John Johnson became, by the Weekly's account, the only Black member of a white fire company in North Carolina. StorylineUniversity students' night schools and social work, 1910–19161910–1916 · 4 events · About 1911, asked for help by the young Black workers who cut firewood and carried water in the dormitories, students began teaching them reading and arithmetic in what were called moonlight schools. Under Frank Porter Graham at the campus YMCA those classes grew to take in history, English, debating, home sanitation and the Bible. The YMCA had already organized Sunday schools enrolling 321 pupils. On November 1, 1915 it opened night moonlight schools in six schoolhouses within four miles of Chapel Hill, with 54 student teachers and about 300 pupils, and students also ran a night school at Carrboro and two for Black pupils. Fifteen students carried the night schools on in the fall of 1916. StorylineConsolidation and desegregation in the Orange County Schools1917–1968 · 180 events · In 1917 Orange County ran 42 one-teacher schools. From 1919 its board closed small schools and merged them into larger ones such as Aycock and Efland, ordering its first buses in 1924 and selling the closed schoolhouses, while keeping separate schools for Black and white pupils. Sixty-six Black parents petitioned against segregated schools in 1964; the county answered with freedom of choice until 1968, when Central High students marched and the county schools integrated. StorylineHenry Guthrie's West Franklin Street property and Black-owned businesses, 1918–19241918–1924 · 5 events · Black-owned businesses grew up around West Franklin Street, where Black families were settling, while Henry "Buddy" Guthrie's property there suffered fire and debt. About 1918 Guthrie opened a picture house. In October 1923 the Black merchant Van Nunn finished a new store on Rosemary Street. That November fire destroyed Guthrie's garage behind the theatre for Black patrons, with four automobiles of Black residents, the second fire on his property in that block in about a month, the News said. On July 4, 1924 the Standard, a movie house owned by and run for Black residents, opened on West Franklin Street. That month a trustee advertised the Guthries' land for sale after they fell behind on the note. StorylineSchool dental clinics in Orange County, 1920–19401920–1940 · 7 events · From 1920 to 1940 Orange County schoolchildren received free or reduced-fee dental care through clinics backed by the State Board of Health, civic clubs and the Red Cross. In January 1920 state school dentist A. M. Schultz treated 75 children free at Chapel Hill High School, then set up a county clinic at Hillsboro. From about 1928 Dr. J. P. Jones ran a clinic for Chapel Hill school children for the Kiwanis Club. By May 1935 a clinic at the Chapel Hill school for Black children had treated 340 children, with Black residents raising $100 of its cost. From 1936 Dr. I. A. Daves of the State Board of Health toured the county's Black schools, reaching every one by 1940. StorylineSegregated housing and neighborhood boundaries1923–1968 · 25 events · New Chapel Hill subdivisions of the 1920s, Gimghoul in 1923 and William C. Coker's Rocky Ridge lots in 1927, carried deed restrictions on the race of residents, and realtors steered Black buyers such as Howard and Lillian Lee away from white neighborhoods. In May 1968 the town adopted North Carolina's first local open housing ordinance. StorylineScouting in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1925–19351925–1935 · 4 events · Chapel Hill hosted what the Weekly called the national council's first patrol leaders' training camp in 1925, when about 125 picked North Carolina Scouts camped on Emerson Field. By 1932 thirty-six men had set up a Chapel Hill district committee under Joseph Hyde Pratt to equip and house the troops of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. In 1933 it reported that the Carrboro troop had grown and had a three-room house, that the Chapel Hill troop had 47 members, and that plans were under way for a troop for Black boys. In December 1935 a new district council sought student leaders for the Carrboro troop and heard a report on the Black troop. StorylineBaby clinics and the Junior Service League, 1930–19471930–1947 · 10 events · Free monthly clinics for babies, held separately for Black and white children, were opened by Chapel Hill's Junior Service League in 1940 and moved into the new Carrboro Health Center in 1947. An earlier clinic for Black babies had run for several weeks at Rock Hill Baptist Church in 1930. With the district health department, the League held clinics for children under two, for Black babies at the Orange County Training School and for white babies at the Carrboro school. It also began a free training school for Black household workers, with an employment agency. Dr. Robert Barrett Lawson and later Dr. Beryl Mason attended the clinics, and by 1944 Hillsborough had separate clinics of its own. StorylineWhite Cross School burns and is rebuilt, 19331933 · 3 events · When fire destroyed the White Cross school building in April 1933, the county replaced it within months with a one-story brick school built from plans the state obtained from the Tennessee office of the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The board authorized a new building for $10,859, and by July the contract had gone to the Home Construction Company of Durham for $9,400; the fire insurance had paid $11,400. The finished school had four large classrooms split by an auditorium, and they were in use by late September 1933. A later documentation form named White Cross one of the county's two best examples of the larger central schools that replaced one- and two-room schools during consolidation. StorylineHard-surfacing Chapel Hill’s streets with federal labor, 1934–19351934–1935 · 10 events · Federal work-relief labor hard-surfaced Chapel Hill's streets in 1934, adding about three and a quarter miles of paved streets. By April 20 relief officials had approved surfacing 76,500 square yards with tar and crushed stone. The government paid about three fourths of the cost; because the Local Government Commission would not let the town borrow for its share, the aldermen raised the tax rate from $1.04 to $1.32. In January 1935, after the Weekly wrote that Black residents had not been fairly treated in the care of streets, the town widened and graveled Church Street, the main street of the Black section. On February 13 an order from Raleigh stopped the relief work. StorylineBlack civic clubs and the Chapel Hill town board, 1935–19561935–1956 · 6 events · From 1935 to 1956 Black civic clubs in Chapel Hill took their neighborhoods' needs to the town board and, later, the school board. In July 1935 Black representatives asked the aldermen for more police protection on West Franklin and West Rosemary streets. In 1946 Adolphus Clark asked for sewer service, drainage, street markings and a light on Sunset Drive; the board ordered the light, markings and drainage but said sewer lines had to wait. Requests for sidewalks, traffic lights and sewer pipe followed in 1950, and in 1952 the club reported 344 children crossing West Franklin Street each day. In 1956 a club petitioned for a Black member on the school board, which named druggist William L. Sloan instead. StorylineCurb markets and community canneries, 1937–19611937–1961 · 17 events · Orange County farm women opened a curb market in Carrboro in September 1937 with the county home demonstration agent and moved it to Chapel Hill the next January. Government-sponsored community canneries, where families came to can meats and vegetables, opened at White Cross in 1943 and at the Hillsborough school in 1944. The women's market's sellers took in $30,280 in its seventh year and $40,004 in its eighth, and in May 1945 Black farm families opened the Orange County Negro Curb Market on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Another cannery was being finished at Aycock School in 1947. The Chapel Hill women's market, in the old church building on North Columbia Street by 1954, marked its twentieth anniversary in October 1957. In August 1961 the market's 16 sellers from the county home demonstration clubs moved into a new block building beside Brady McLennan's Durham Road restaurant. StorylineCharles M. Jones and the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church, 1941–19531941–1953 · 8 events · In 1953 a commission of Orange Presbytery removed Charles M. Jones as pastor of the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church, though his congregation had voted to keep him. By Frank Porter Graham's account, Jones sheltered the riders of both races who tested bus segregation in 1947. In November 1952 the presbytery's Judicial Commission called for a clean break, holding that he and the church had not always been true to the denomination's standards. The congregation voted 156 to 14 not to dismiss him. In February 1953 the commission dissolved the pastoral relationship, though its chairman said there were no charges or censures against Jones. After the General Assembly's commission upheld it, Jones asked to be divested of office without censure. StorylineOrange County's war loan drives, 1942–19451942–1945 · 12 events · From farm families pledging a pig or an acre of crops in 1942 to the Victory Loan of 1945, Orange County kept buying war bonds, and it passed its quota in each drive from the Fourth War Loan on. In 1942 rural families pledged $50,000 in bonds and stamps for the year. The Fourth War Loan of 1944, under county chairman J. Maryon Saunders of Chapel Hill, passed its $540,000 quota by mid-February, helped by a $25,000 county investment, though E bond sales lagged. The county went over in the Fifth and Sixth loans, and in 1945 the Seventh closed at $1,308,000 against a $574,000 quota. Saunders counted $6,120,000 in bonds bought in the seven drives he led. StorylineBlack Chapel Hill on the home front, 1942–19441942–1944 · 9 events · From 1942 to 1944 Chapel Hill's Black residents carried on their own home-front work, from civil defense and scrap collection to bond sales and gardens. By 1943 twelve Black men trained for fire protection had civil defense arm bands, and the Orange County Training School had collected 22,075 pounds of scrap; its Jeep campaign sold more in stamps and bonds than the $900 cost of an Army jeep. Black residents began a Victory Garden campaign and formed a Citizens Service Corps. In 1944 Black veterans of both world wars formed an American Legion post, and a federally funded day nursery for children of Black working mothers opened at the Training School. StorylineVeterans’ organizations in Orange County, 1943–19581943–1958 · 29 events · Between 1943 and 1958 Orange County's veterans organized posts in each town, and Black veterans formed their own, in Chapel Hill in 1944 and in Hillsboro in 1947. Chapel Hill's American Legion post drew many protests in 1943 for a traveling carnival with a strip act and gambling games, and editor Louis Graves, a Legion member, criticized the post. Hillsborough veterans organized Post No. 85 in 1944. After the war came a Carrboro Legion post, the county's first two Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, a Marine Corps League post and a county veterans' service office. In 1955 Chapel Hill's Paul Robertson became the Legion's state commander, and in 1958 fire gutted Hillsboro's Legion hut, which reopened in 1959. StorylineThe Hillsboro Health Club and its community center, 1945–19471945–1947 · 6 events · Meeting with county health department leaders in May 1945, Black parents and teachers in Hillsboro organized to improve health conditions, with Roosevelt Warner as chairman. University of Virginia researchers came that July to study the Health Club for a book, and by November it was restoring the old Odd Fellows Hall as a community center, where it gave a banquet for returning Black veterans in March 1946. The county library for Black readers moved into the center that April, and in 1947 Agnes Johnson Whitted taught a kindergarten there. StorylineThe Chapel Hill town election of 1949April–May 1949 · 6 events · A mass meeting at the Community Center nominated the Rev. J. H. Jones, a Black minister, for the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen in April 1949, registration added 479 voters, 174 of them Black, and the League of Women Voters held a candidates' meeting. On May 3, with 1,442 of 1,726 registered voters at the polls, Edwin S. Lanier unseated Mayor Robert W. Madry, 811 to 589. Mrs. Roland McClamroch and Jones, whom the News called the town's first woman and first Black candidates for the board, each drew 607 votes and lost. At its first meeting the new board asked for zoning a mile beyond the town limits. StorylineThe Rural Progress Program and its successors, 1951–19591951–1959 · 21 events · Orange County joined the state Rural Progress campaign in September 1951, aiming to add $1,000 to each farm family's income and to improve every home and community. County workers enlisted more than 100 white neighborhood leaders and Black captains to survey farm families, and Lincoln High's agriculture department began the program among Black families around Chapel Hill. Separate prize nights for white and Black farm families followed each year. Orange was named the state's County of the Year in December 1953 and won the division for Black families in February 1954. Successor programs followed in 1955 and 1957, and Cedar Grove won the silver loving cup for Black families in 1957 and 1958. StorylineRecreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1955–19641955–1964 · 20 events · Chapel Hill voters turned down a recreation tax in 1957 and approved one in 1963, and in between private backers and gifts of land supplied a recreation center and a pool. A 1955 act created a Chapel Hill-Carrboro recreation district, but Carrboro asked to be left out. At the 1957 hearings Carrboro residents feared for their school tax and Black PTA leader Lattice Vickers asked what Black residents would get; the commissioners dropped Carrboro and the rural areas, and voters turned down the tax 1,176 to 514. Private backers formed Chapel Hill Recreation Center, Inc. on Bolin Creek land offered by John W. Umstead and his family, and in 1962 Exchange Pools, Inc. opened a pool beside the center. StorylineCaring for the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, 1960–19941960–1994 · 15 events · Ownership of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery was long unsettled between the University and the town, and vandals damaged dozens of stones in 1974 and 1985. After Rebecca Clark showed the Town Council its neglect in 1985, the state let the town take charge in 1987, the council adopted a $290,000 improvement plan, and a 1989 deed settled ownership. In 1992 students held a candlelight march for the Black dead buried there and pressed the town to finish the repairs, and the cemetery entered the National Register in 1994. StorylineThe Inter-Church Council's housing work, 1963–19661963–1966 · 3 events · The Inter-Church Council, formed in 1963, was building homes on Community Chest money by 1965. In 1966 students from Morrison Residence College and the Nurses Dormitory finished a nine-room house it had begun for a Black family near the Carrboro town dump, and Adelaide Walters began her years as chair of its housing committee. StorylinePreserving affordable housing1967–2024 · 59 events · Chapel Hill opened its first public housing in 1967, brought it under town control after a rent strike in the 1980s, and with Carrboro and the county built the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust from 1991. Conservation districts for Northside and Pine Knolls, inclusionary zoning in 2010, housing bonds in 2016 and 2018 and the Northside land bank followed, and the land trust marked 30 years with 332 permanently affordable homes in 2021. StorylineCampus radio: WCAR, WXYC and WUNC-FM, 1969–19941969–1994 · 17 events · The student station WCAR began broadcasting to UNC's dormitories in 1969, and students voted in 1973 to fund its move to FM. The Black Student Movement twice protested to keep the program Black Sounds on its schedule, in 1973 and in 1974. The University's WUNC-FM, silent for lack of money from about 1970, won grants in 1974 and returned to the air as an NPR affiliate in 1976. In 1975 the FCC granted and then set aside a permit for a student FM station after the chancellor withdrew University backing. WCAR went off the air in 1976, and the student station WXYC signed on at 89.3 FM in 1977. StorylineHonoring Martin Luther King Jr. in Chapel Hill, 1970–19931970–1993 · 46 events · Mayor Howard Lee proclaimed a Martin Luther King Day in Chapel Hill in January 1970, though UNC declined to close, and the aldermen named the day again in 1973. UNC's Faculty Council struck King's name from a proposed yearly observance in 1977, but a King Memorial Lecture began in 1978 and a campus-wide celebration in 1982. In 1984 Chapel Hill made King's birthday a town holiday. Andrew Young, Max Robinson and Randall Robinson were among the King Memorial Lecture speakers of the 1980s, Carrboro's mayor proclaimed a King Day in 1981, and King's daughters Yolanda and Bernice spoke at UNC's celebrations in 1984 and 1989. UNC held classes on the first federal King holiday in 1986 but, after students petitioned, closed for it in 1988 under new state legislation. Rallies and marches on Franklin Street marked the holiday in 1987 and 1988, and Maya Angelou and June Jordan spoke at UNC in 1988 and 1989. In 1991 a King holiday gathering at the post office opposed the Persian Gulf war and UNC's tenth annual celebration brought C.T. Vivian, and in 1992 an NAACP march and a service at First Baptist Church marked the day. In 1993 UNC housekeepers held a Unity Day dinner in King's honor. StorylineWomen's complaints and affirmative action at UNC, 1970–19941970–1994 · 67 events · From 1970 UNC women challenged the University's limits on admitting women and its treatment of women employees, through Female Liberation's demands, a federal complaint by the Women's Equity Action League and later complaints by NOW and the Association of Women Students. The Faculty Council's 1973 report found gaps between men and women in hiring, pay and promotion. UNC's first affirmative action plan took effect in July 1973 but was rejected by HEW, and a revised plan followed in 1974; by that fall women made up 17.6 percent of the faculty. A federal agency upheld NOW's complaint in 1976, a religion professor lost her discrimination suit in 1978, and in 1981 Gillian Cell became UNC's first full-time affirmative action officer. In 1980 the Faculty Council's women's committee found no women hired as full professors since 1974, and in 1984 it reported that women in tenure-track posts had barely grown in a decade. Cell left the post in 1983 and in 1985 became dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The University adopted a maternity leave policy in 1985, and in 1989 the women's committee reported that women held only 9 percent of full professorships. In 1990 and 1991 women in University housing maintenance and the School of Dentistry filed harassment grievances, and in 1992 the women's committee reported that all four full professorships awarded in 1990-91 went to men. In 1993 a state judge found sexual harassment in a Physical Plant grievance and the EEOC found sex discrimination in a tenure denial, and in 1994 the Faculty Council set goals for hiring women. StorylineOrange County landfill campaign1972 to 2013 · 69 events · The Eubanks Road landfill opened beside the Rogers Road community in 1972; four decades of expansions, lawsuits and the neighborhood's demands ended with its closure in 2013. StorylineBlack History Week and Month in Chapel Hill, 1972–19851972–1985 · 6 events · The Black Student Movement held its first Black History Week at UNC in 1972, and its 1975 week brought a speaker on Pan-Africanism and a panel with Mayor Howard Lee. Chapel Hill High's Afro-American Club and the Hargraves Community Center held their own programs. In the 1980s Black History Month brought Alex Haley to Memorial Hall and the BSM's Discovery day of seminars for students and alumni. StorylineGay and Lesbian Awareness Week at UNC, 1978–19941978–1994 · 17 events · The Carolina Gay Association held its first Gay Awareness Week in March 1978, and the week of films, talks and workshops became a yearly event with a Blue Jeans Day. Its notices on the cube were defaced in the early years. Speakers over the years included Jeff Levi, Tom Duane and Mandy Carter. In 1994 the week took the name Celebration Week. StorylineThe Pittsboro Street extension, 1987–19911987–1991 · 6 events · Extending Pittsboro Street through Little Fraternity Court drew opposition from Northside residents, fraternities and University Square at 1987 hearings. The Chapel Hill Town Council dropped it from its capital improvements program in 1989 and from the thoroughfare plan in June 1991, though UNC officials had supported it. That October state highway staff said they would still encourage the road. StorylineRacial discrimination complaints in Chapel Hill’s town departments, 1993–19951993–1995 · 4 events · In 1993 Chapel Hill upheld one of four racial discrimination complaints by transportation workers. In 1994 a Black maintenance worker sued the town over racial harassment, including a noose hung in the garage, and settled for $50,000. In 1995 the Black Public Works Association filed a discrimination grievance against the town.

Indexed works

Works about Black Life & Civil Rights from library and archive catalogs. The most widely held appear first; novels are not shown here. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 447 Letters & correspondence 188 Photographs & portraits 113 Reports 89 Biography 87other types 359

Period

18th century 68 Revolution (1775–1783) 23 19th century 170 Civil War (1861–1865) 39 Reconstruction (1865–1877) 8 20th century 164 World War II era 13 21st century 8

Place

North Carolina (statewide) 653 Orange County 566 Chapel Hill 508 Hillsborough 144 Carrboro 59 City of Durham (neighboring) 32

Widely held

To Free A Family

Nathans, Sydney · 2012 · Harvard University Press

Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Methodist record: Women slaves.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (2012), Civil War Book Review (2012).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO WALKER NAT NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Game Changers

Chansky, Art · 2016

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Racism in sports.

✓ Held at OCPL · 796.323 CHANSKY NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Methodist CH Historical Society

The Free Men

Ehle, Jr., John Marsden · 1965

John Ehle's account of the civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill in 1963 and 1964 and the young people who led them, first published by Harper & Row in 1965. This reprint from Lewisville, North Carolina adds an afterword by Wayne King. Civil rights and race relations in Chapel Hill are its subjects. 340 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Civil rights.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 323.4 EHL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress UNCSA CH Historical Society

To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation’s Oldest University

Kapur, Geeta · 2021

Geeta Kapur's history of race at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from the enslaved labor that built the campus through desegregation and the Black student protests that followed. Twelve chapters, with a foreword by William Barber II, move from the founding era and the Great Depression controversies to the state's response to integration and the turmoil of later decades; North Carolina Central University also figures. Published 2021 by Blair in Durham.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Racism.

NC Cardinal UNC NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress UNCSA

Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina

Pleasants, Julian M.; Burns, Augustus M., III · 1990 · UNC Press

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NCCU record: Race relations.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1991), The American Historical Review (1991), Journal of American History (1991), The Journal of Southern History (1992).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 324.975 PLE Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU CH Historical Society

Ribbons of Color Along the Eno River

2021

Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: African Americans.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 RIBBONS NC Cardinal UNC Duke Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society

Show 2 more

The Impact of Slavery on the Education of Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina 1619-1970

Moore, Rosetta Austin · 2015

Rosetta Austin Moore's survey of Black education in Orange County from the colonial era to 1970, in a revised edition published in 2015 through Lulu in Morrisville. After chapters on slavery nationally and on schooling for enslaved people in North Carolina, the book turns to the county: its formation, the growth of its schools, the arrival of free public schooling for all, and the schools and African American educators of the twentieth century. 265 pages with maps, portraits and facsimiles.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Enslaved persons.

✓ Held at OCPL · 371.009 MOORE NC Cardinal UNC NC State Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society

A Mind to Stay: White Plantation, Black Homeland

Nathans, Sydney · 2017

Sydney Nathans's history of a Black community in Hale County, Alabama, whose founders were enslaved people sent there before the Civil War from the Cameron family's plantations in Orange County, North Carolina. Instead of following the Great Migration out of the South, this group stayed, moved from bondage to owning the land they had worked, and held onto it across generations. Published 2017, 342 pages with plates and maps; this is the e-book edition.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC State record: Freedmen.

Reviewed in Journal of American History (2017), Journal of Social History (2017), London review of books (2017), The Journal of the Civil War Era (2018), The Journal of Southern History (2018), Environmental History (2018), The Alabama review (2019), The Oral History Review (2019), The Register - Kentucky Historical Society/The register of the Kentucky Historical Society (2020).

Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU

Recently indexed: Another trial of integration (1956) · Anti-religious invasion of higher education (1932) · Factors affecting the college choice of black students : an overview (1974) · Gratitude (1940) · Handbook of preparation (1939) · In heaven's name, governor, save our state from further predatory acts by these so-called modern educators against "things of the spirit" (1932)

Search all 1,058 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

Start here · 975.656 WOO When the Roll Is Called up Yonder: Black History in Hillsborough, North Carolina Wood, Peter H. · 2005
Peter H. Wood's short history of Black Hillsborough, self-published in the town in 2005, 40 pages with illustrations and a map. It covers African Americans in Hillsborough, their history and their social life and customs, and is a brief starting point for the subject.
Foundational · NC 929.209 SCARLETT The Harris Family of Orange County, North Carolina: 318 Years of Black-American Indian Culture Scarlett, Beverly A. · 2019
Beverly A. Scarlett traces the Harris family of Orange County across what her subtitle calls 318 years of Black-American Indian culture, a family history of mixed African American and Native descent in the county. Published through Lulu in Morrisville in 2019, 95 pages with illustrations, portraits and maps. It concerns both African American and Indigenous genealogy for Orange County.
Start here · 796.323 CHANSKY Game Changers: Dean Smith, Charlie Scott, and the Era That Transformed A Southern College Town Chansky, Art · 2016
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.

Show 6 more

Foundational · 323.423 CHA Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom Chafe, William Henry · 1980
William H. Chafe's study of race relations and the Black freedom struggle in Greensboro, where the 1960 sit-ins at the Woolworth's lunch counter opened the protest phase of the civil rights movement. Chafe, a Duke University historian, treats the city's story as the nation's struggle with racism in small. Oxford University Press published it in 1980, 436 pages with illustrations, notes and an index; it won the first Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1981.
Foundational · 371.009 MOORE The Impact of Slavery on the Education of Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina 1619-1970 Moore, Rosetta Austin · 2015
Rosetta Austin Moore's survey of Black education in Orange County from the colonial era to 1970, in a revised edition published in 2015 through Lulu in Morrisville. After chapters on slavery nationally and on schooling for enslaved people in North Carolina, the book turns to the county: its formation, the growth of its schools, the arrival of free public schooling for all, and the schools and African American educators of the twentieth century. 265 pages with maps, portraits and facsimiles.
Foundational · NC 975.656 RIBBONS Ribbons of Color Along the Eno River: The History of African Americans and People of Color Living on the Eno 2021
Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.
Foundational · NC 975.656 HISTORIC Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color Who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 Historic Hillsborough Commission (Hillsborough, N.C.) · 2019
The Historic Hillsborough Commission's account of slavery in antebellum Hillsborough and of the enslaved and free people of color who worked at the Burwell School, the female school the Burwells kept in town, between 1837 and 1857. African American history in Hillsborough and the school's own history are its two threads. Published in 2019.
Foundational · NC 975.656 BOLDUC African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History Bolduc, Jean · 2016
Jean Bolduc's 2016 collection of interviews with African American residents of Durham and Orange counties, presented as short biographies. The subjects are Floyd McKissick (1922-1991), the first African American admitted to UNC's law school, Walter Jackson, Brenda Stephens, Nate Davis, poet Jaki Shelton Green, Jackie Wagstaff, Diane Wright and Michelle Johnson, with a closing chapter on the Ku Klux Klan. 125 pages with illustrations.
Foundational · NC 929.375 MAL Freedmen's Marriage Records, Orange County, North Carolina, 1866-1868 Mallard, Shirley Jones · 2000
Transcriptions by Shirley Jones Mallard of Orange County's freedmen's marriage records for 1866 to 1868, the registers in which formerly enslaved couples recorded marriages made under slavery and given legal standing after emancipation. For many African American families in the county these are the earliest records that name both partners. Compiled in 2000.

In the chronology

A selection of 12 events from the 3,622 chronology entries for this theme, including highlights and examples from different years. See all 3,622 dated events in the chronology →

1829 Thomas Ruffin issues the State v. Mann decision Thomas Ruffin of Hillsborough, newly seated on the North Carolina Supreme Court, wrote the opinion in State v. Mann, overturning the conviction of John Mann of Edenton for shooting Lydia, an enslaved woman he had hired, as she fled a whipping. Ruffin held that a master's power must be absolute, and abolitionists later cited the ruling widely. People: Thomas Ruffin, Lydia Place: Countywide · Also named: John MannAfrican American Intellectual History Society, Black Perspectives: Sally Greene, State v. Mann: Lydia's Journey (February 23, 2022)
1837–1857 Burwell School for young women operates Robert and Margaret Anna Burwell operated their Hillsborough school for girls from 1837 to 1857. People: Margaret Anna Burwell, Robert Armistead Burwell, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly Place: HillsboroughNCpedia
1855 Elizabeth Keckly purchases freedom for herself and her son Elizabeth Keckly purchased freedom for herself and her son in St. Louis, after earlier enslavement in Hillsborough. People: George Kirkland, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckly Place: St. Louis, Missouri; earlier Hillsborough connection · Also named: Elizabeth Keckly, James KecklyNCpedia
c. 1904 Elizabeth Cotten composes Freight Train At about age eleven, growing up near the railroad tracks in the settlement that became Carrboro, Elizabeth Cotten wrote "Freight Train." She played a right-handed guitar upside down, and the song became a folk standard after Folkways released her recording in 1958. People: Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten Place: CarrboroSearch the index · NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Elizabeth Cotten 1893-1987 (G-129)
1930–1940 Census counts tenants on about a third of Orange County farms Tenants operated 643 of 1,870 Orange County farms in 1930 (34.4 percent), 718 of 1,956 in 1935 (36.7 percent) and 687 of 2,043 in 1940 (33.6 percent). Of the 1940 tenants, 514 were share tenants and croppers. Place: Orange County · Also mentions: Orange County farmsUS Census of Agriculture 1940: North Carolina County Table II, farms by tenure of operator
July 31, 1942 to April 1944 The Navy B-1 Band serves at Chapel Hill The B-1 Band, 44 Black musicians sworn in at Raleigh on May 27, 1942 as the first African Americans to serve in the Navy at general rank, played for the Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC from July 1942 to April 1944. Barred from campus housing, they lived in the new Black community center on Roberson Street, now the Hargraves Center. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Hargraves Center, Navy Pre-Flight School, Roberson StreetSearch the index · UNC-Chapel Hill: Pioneers of integration (May 25, 2017) · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, August 7, 1942, p. 1
April 1947–March 1949 Journey of Reconciliation comes to Chapel Hill Interracial riders testing segregation on interstate buses reached Chapel Hill on April 12, 1947. The next day police arrested four of them at the bus station and a white cab driver struck rider James Peck. Convicted in Orange County, Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko and Joe Felmet surrendered at the Hillsborough courthouse on March 21, 1949 to serve chain-gang sentences. People: Bayard Rustin, George Houser, Igal Roodenko, Joseph A. Felmet Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Hillsborough courthouseTown of Chapel Hill: Information packet for Freedom Riders resolution (Council agenda, January 28, 2008) · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, February 27, 1976, p. 1
May 27, 1951 Orange County Negro Public Library dedicates its own building About 150 people attended an open house on May 27, 1951 dedicating the Orange County Negro Public Library's own building in Hillsborough, a structure bought from Camp Butner and put up with volunteer labor. Begun in 1942 by Marinda McPherson, the library had opened to the public in 1949 and now held more than 3,000 books. Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Marinda McPhersonThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 31, 1951, p. 1 (Open House Officially Opens Community Library For Negro Citizens Here Sunday)
1968 Central High students march and Orange County schools integrate In 1968 Black students at Central High School in Hillsborough walked out and marched to protest a plan for phased desegregation. After Central's last class graduated that spring, its high school students moved to Orange High, ending the county's dual school system in 1968–69. Place: Hillsborough · Also mentions: Central High School, Orange HighAlliance for Historic Hillsborough: Central High School/Agnes Kindergarten
1969 Braxton Foushee becomes Carrboro’s first Black alderman Braxton Foushee was elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 1969, the first Black member of the town's governing board, and served until 1981. He pressed for paved roads and sidewalks in Black neighborhoods and counted bringing bus service to Carrboro as his proudest achievement. People: Braxton Foushee Place: CarrboroTown of Carrboro: Braxton Foushee to Receive the Order of the Long Leaf Pine (November 14, 2025)
May 6, 1969 Howard Lee is elected mayor of Chapel Hill Howard N. Lee defeated Roland Giduz by about 400 votes on May 6, 1969, in the largest turnout for a Chapel Hill election to that date, becoming the town's first Black mayor. He was the first African American elected mayor of a predominantly white Southern town since Reconstruction. People: Howard N. Lee, Roland Giduz Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Lillian LeeThe Daily Tar Heel, May 7, 1969, p. 1: Howard Lee Elected Chapel Hill Mayor
November 21, 1970 James Cates is killed outside the UNC Student Union James Lewis Cates Jr., 22, a Black Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed outside the UNC Student Union shortly before 2 a.m. during an all-night dance, in a clash with members of Durham's Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, and died at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Three white men charged in his death were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971. People: James L. Cates Jr. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: James Lewis Cates Jr. · Also mentions: North Carolina Memorial HospitalThe Daily Tar Heel, November 22, 1970, p. 1

See all 3,622 dated events in the chronology →

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 157 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.

Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 132 events here
Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 129 events here
Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 78 events here
Central High and Central Elementary, Hillsborough Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 73 events here
Carolina Union (Frank Porter Graham Student Union) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 60 events here
Hargraves Community Center Community centers and organizations · Chapel Hill · 46 events here
Memorial Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 42 events here
Cedar Grove schools Schools and academies · Cedar Grove · 38 events here
Burwell School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 30 events here
Chapel Hill High School Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 28 events here
South Building University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 25 events here
Upendo Lounge University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 24 events here

Show 179 more

Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 23 events here
Home demonstration clubs Community centers and organizations · Hillsborough · 22 events here
Old Chapel Hill Cemetery Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Chapel Hill · 20 events here
Northside School Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 19 events here
UNC School of Law University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 17 events here
Efland schools Schools and academies · Efland · 16 events here
Orange County Public Library Libraries, museums and media · Hillsborough · 16 events here
Chase Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 15 events here
Lenoir Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 15 events here
North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home) Schools and academies · Efland · 15 events here
Carrboro Elementary School Schools and academies · Carrboro · 14 events here
First Baptist Church, Chapel Hill Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 14 events here
Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough Public buildings and services · Hillsborough · 12 events here
Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association Community centers and organizations · Rogers Road · 12 events here
Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 12 events here
UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital) University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 12 events here
Aycock School Schools and academies · Cedar Grove · 11 events here
Kenan Stadium University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 11 events here
University YMCA University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 11 events here
Orange County jail, Hillsborough Public buildings and services · Hillsborough · 10 events here
Orange High School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 10 events here
St. Paul AME Church Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 10 events here
UNC School of Public Health University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 10 events here
University Presbyterian Church Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 10 events here
White Cross School Schools and academies · White Cross · 10 events here
Community Church of Chapel Hill Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 9 events here
Hillsborough Presbyterian Church Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 9 events here
Navy Pre-Flight School University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 9 events here
Old East University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 9 events here
University Baptist Church Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 9 events here
Chase Cafeteria (Chase Hall) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 8 events here
Gerrard Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 8 events here
Hillsborough High School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 8 events here
Ridge Road School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 8 events here
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 8 events here
UNC Libraries University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 8 events here
Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza Public buildings and services · Chapel Hill · 7 events here
Chapel Hill School (West Franklin Street) Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 7 events here
Marian Cheek Jackson Center Community centers and organizations · Chapel Hill · 7 events here
Mount Bright Baptist Church Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 7 events here
University Laundry University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 7 events here
Cheek-Clark Building (University Laundry) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 6 events here
Dickerson Chapel AME Church Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 6 events here
Hinton James Residence Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 6 events here
Inter-Faith Council for Social Service Community centers and organizations · Chapel Hill · 6 events here
Jeter and Ethel Neville House Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Carrboro · 6 events here
Old West University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 6 events here
The Carolina Inn University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 6 events here
Chapel Hill Public Library Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 5 events here
Chapel of the Cross Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 5 events here
Community Center (old Odd Fellows Hall, Hillsborough) Community centers and organizations · Hillsborough · 5 events here
Hill Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 5 events here
Margaret Lane Cemetery Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Hillsborough · 5 events here
Orange County poorhouse (County Home) Public buildings and services · Hillsborough · 5 events here
Saunders Hall (later Carolina Hall) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 5 events here
Steele Building University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 5 events here
The Pit University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 5 events here
Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Carrboro · 5 events here
Duke land purchases in Orange County Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
Fetzer Field University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
Graham Memorial University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
Morehead Planetarium University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
UNC School of Medicine University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 4 events here
White Oak Grove School Schools and academies · Cedar Grove · 4 events here
Blackwood Farm Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · 3 events here
Burnside Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Hillsborough · 3 events here
Caldwell School Schools and academies · Caldwell · 3 events here
Cameron Park School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 3 events here
Carr School Schools and academies · Carr · 3 events here
Chapel Hill Town Hall (1938) Public buildings and services · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
Institute of Government University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
Murphey Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
Murphey School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 3 events here
Piney Mountain School Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
Presbyterian Church for Colored People (Hillsborough) Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 3 events here
Sewage disposal plant and incinerator (Chapel Hill) Public buildings and services · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
Standard Theatre Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
University United Methodist Church Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 3 events here
American Legion Hut (Hillsborough) Community centers and organizations · Hillsborough · 2 events here
Berry Building Businesses, mills and venues · Hillsborough · 2 events here
Cabe-Pratt-Harris House (Riverbend Farm) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Eno River · 2 events here
Carmichael Auditorium (Carmichael Arena) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Carolina Theatre (1942) Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Carr Building (Henry Owl Building) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Carrboro Town Hall Public buildings and services · Carrboro · 2 events here
Carroll Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Chapel Hill Transit Public buildings and services · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
College Cafe Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Duke Homestead (Washington Duke farm) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · 2 events here
Fairntosh Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Little River · 2 events here
Farmers Mutual Exchange Businesses, mills and venues · Hillsborough · 2 events here
Frank Porter Graham Elementary School Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Hillsborough railroad depot Public buildings and services · Hillsborough · 2 events here
Hortense McClinton Residence Hall (formerly Aycock) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Jordan’s Grove School Schools and academies · Cedar Grove · 2 events here
Mama Dip’s Kitchen Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Mangum Residence Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Manning Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
McDougle School Schools and academies · Carrboro · 2 events here
McPherson's Ball Park Businesses, mills and venues · Hillsborough · 2 events here
Mebane Chapel Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 2 events here
Navy Hall (later Jackson Hall) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Pickwick Theatre Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Polk Place University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Rite Aid (Franklin Street) Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District (Laurel Hill) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
St. Mary’s Chapel Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 2 events here
Stagville Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Little River · 2 events here
The Daily Tar Heel Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
The Rock Pile Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Varsity Theatre (the first Carolina Theatre) Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Venable Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Wesley Foundation Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Women's Curb Market (former Holiness church) Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 2 events here
Ackland Art Museum University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Alumni Building University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Ayr Mount Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Battle Park Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Bolin Brook Farm (Troy and Roberta Andrews House) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Calvander · 1 event here
Bull's Head Bookshop Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Cane Creek Baptist Church Churches and lodges · Cane Creek · 1 event here
Carolina Playmakers University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Carrboro Farmers’ Market Community centers and organizations · Carrboro · 1 event here
Carrboro Lions Park Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Carrboro · 1 event here
Daniel Boone Village Businesses, mills and venues · Hillsborough · 1 event here
David Faucette House (The Elms) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Eno River · 1 event here
Dean E. Smith Center University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill) Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Eagle Lodge Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Elm Grove School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Eno Presbyterian Church Churches and lodges · Eno River · 1 event here
Fairview Bowling Alley Businesses, mills and venues · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Fire station (Chapel Hill) Public buildings and services · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
First Baptist Church (Hillsborough) Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Forest Theatre University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
General Johnston Motel and General Sherman Restaurant Businesses, mills and venues · 1 event here
Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Glenwood Elementary School Schools and academies · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Greenlaw Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Hamilton Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Harmony School Schools and academies · Cedar Grove · 1 event here
Hawfields Presbyterian Church Churches and lodges · New Hope · 1 event here
Hillsborough Prison Unit Public buildings and services · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Hillsborough Recorder Libraries, museums and media · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Hillsborough Town Hall Public buildings and services · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Horace Williams Airport University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Howell Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Hughes Academy (Cedar Grove Academy) Schools and academies · Cedar Grove · 1 event here
Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church Churches and lodges · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Josiah Turner Jr. House (The Grove) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Hillsborough · 1 event here
NCNB Building (NCNB Plaza) Businesses, mills and venues · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Nash and Kollock School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 1 event here
North Carolina Railroad Public buildings and services · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Occoneechee Farm Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Old Methodist Church (Rosemary Street) Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Old Tavern (419 Hillsborough Street) Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Orange County Historical Museum Libraries, museums and media · Hillsborough · 1 event here
Orange Grove School (Orange Grove Academy) Schools and academies · Orange Grove · 1 event here
Peabody Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Person Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Piedmont Health Services Public buildings and services · Carrboro · 1 event here
Ruffin-Hill House Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Hillsborough · 1 event here
St. Mary's School Schools and academies · Hillsborough · 1 event here
St. Thomas More Catholic Church Churches and lodges · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Swain Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
The Chapel Hill News Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Twin Chimneys Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries · Hillsborough · 1 event here
UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
University Summer School University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
University infirmary (Abernethy Hall) University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
University of North Carolina Press University schools and programs · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
WCHL radio Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
WUNC radio and television Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
WXYC Libraries, museums and media · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Webb's Warehouse Businesses, mills and venues · Hillsborough · 1 event here
William and Ida Friday Center University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here
Woollen Gymnasium University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this subject. Research guide: How to research with Orange County Indexed.

Background 17

NCpedia: Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina
NCpedia: Freedmen's Bureau
Concise historical background
Commemorative Landscapes: African American unmarked graves, Old Chapel Hill CemeteryCommemorative Landscapes of North Carolina (UNC) Monuments and memorials, documented with their histories
Commemorative Landscapes: Orange County Training, Northside Elementary, Lincoln High memorialCommemorative Landscapes of North Carolina (UNC) Documentation of the memorial to Chapel Hill’s historically Black schools

Show all 17

Visit Hillsborough: Dickerson's Chapel AME Church A historic Black congregation in a building erected in 1790 for Hillsborough’s early Methodist community
Historical marker G-135: Navy B-1 BandNC Highway Historical Marker In May 1942 a group of 44 African American musicians broke U.S. Navy's color barrier, enlisting at general rank. Barracks were 1/4 mi. W.
Marker: Carrboro �Truth Plaque�Historical Marker Database (HMdb.org)
Marker: This Building Tells Many StoriesHistorical Marker Database (HMdb.org)
Plaques and memorials outside the state program, with inscriptions and photographs
Open Orange: Hargraves Community Center / Negro Community Center History of the center built as the Negro Community Center in 1945, its later names, and Caldwell's twelve years as director.
NC African American Heritage Commission: Hargraves Community Center (1942) Heritage commission account of the 1930s push for a Black recreation center, the WPA-funded construction and the Navy band's role.
WUNC: Black U.S. Navy Band Remembered In Chapel Hill Radio report on the 2017 historical marker honoring the Black musicians of the B-1 Navy Band, trained at Chapel Hill.
Our State: Banding Together Magazine feature on the B-1 Navy Band, the first Black men in the modern Navy at general rank, trained here.
R.A. Fountain: U.S. Navy B-1 Band overview Site on the B-1 Band with muster list, chronology, photographs, the 2017 marker dedication and Chapel Hill wartime material.
From the Rock Wall: Hargraves Community CenterChapel Hill Historical Society Neighborhood history of the center, built by Black masons and carpenters from 1939 with WPA support, and its role in Northside.
From the Rock Wall: A.D. Clark PoolChapel Hill Historical Society History of the Roberson Street Center pool opened in June 1961, and how Black youth swam in creeks before it.
Equal Justice Initiative: Lynching in America, North Carolina Documented racial-terror lynchings by county, with the report behind the county’s 2022 resolution
UNC Libraries exhibit: Enriching VoicesUNC-Chapel Hill The North Carolina roots of African American literature

National Register files

National Register: Old Chapel Hill CemeteryNational Register nomination Nomination (6/3/1994), Chapel Hill: history, description, and sources for the property
National Register: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored GirlsNational Register nomination Nomination (01/25/2018), Efland vicinity: history, description, and sources for the property

Historic sites, markers, and maps

Town of Chapel Hill: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery The town’s page on the cemetery’s history, segregated sections, and National Register documentation
Alliance for Historic Hillsborough: Margaret Lane Cemetery Page on the Hillsborough burial ground with three surviving gravestones for an estimated 300 Black people, once called the Old Slave Cemetery.

Records of the time 7

UNC Digital Collections: History of Hargraves Center compiled by Chapel Hill Parks and RecreationUNC-Chapel Hill Late-1980s history of the center, built from interviews with longtime users and Lucille Caldwell, its first paid director.
Digital Library on American Slavery: runaway notices North Carolina runaway advertisements 1750 to 1865, searchable by county, free without a library card
Documenting the American South: The Church in the Southern Black Community Sermons, church histories, and denominational records, 1740 to 1920
NC Digital Collections: Civil RightsNorth Carolina Digital Collections State records and photographs from the civil-rights years

Show all 7

NC Digital Collections: African American EducationNorth Carolina Digital Collections Records and photographs of Black schools, Rosenwald schools among them
NC Digital Collections: Cohabitation RecordsNorth Carolina Digital Collections The 1866 registrations that gave formerly enslaved couples legal marriages, by county
National Archives: Freedmen’s Bureau records Labor contracts, rations, marriages, and complaints from the Bureau’s North Carolina offices, 1865 to 1872

Collections and databases 12

NC LIVE: Digital Library on American Slavery Library card Runaway advertisements and manumission records for Orange County, the earliest documents that name Black residents
UNC Wilson Library: Fellowship of Southern Churchmen Records, 1937-1986UNC-Chapel Hill Finding aid for the interracial church group's papers; its 1945 to 1949 office files cover its Chapel Hill headquarters.
UNC Wilson Library: Anne Queen Papers, 1930-2000UNC-Chapel Hill Papers of the white director of the campus YMCA-YWCA, with correspondence and records bearing on her years in Chapel Hill.
UNC Wilson Library: Charles Miles Jones PapersUNC-Chapel Hill Papers of a Chapel Hill Presbyterian minister and civil rights activist, focused on the 1952-1953 investigation of his ministry.

Show all 12

NC LIVE: Exploring Race in Society Library card How segregation, housing, schooling, and policing were built by law and policy, the background to the county’s civil-rights history
NC LIVE: Historic North Carolina Digital Newspaper Collection Library card The county’s papers on Lincoln High, the sit-ins, and the Black community’s churches, schools, and businesses, as reported at the time
NC LIVE: African American Poetry Library card Poems by African American authors 1750 to 1900, George Moses Horton of Chapel Hill among them
NC LIVE: Bloomsbury Collections (ABC-CLIO Ebooks) Library card American slave narratives as e-books, with Elizabeth Keckly’s memoir among the first-person accounts
NC LIVE: JSTOR Library card The scholarship on Chapel Hill’s freedom movement, school desegregation, and Black community life
NC LIVE: New York Times Library card National coverage of the 1963–64 demonstrations, Howard Lee’s election, and the desegregation of the university
Resource Explorer: local history resourcesLibrary Resource Explorer OCPL’s databases for North Carolina history, with what each is best for
NC LIVE: prepared search for Black Life & Civil Rights Library card Search NC LIVE for this subject and Orange County. You can change the search terms. Sign in through your North Carolina library to access the materials.

Local help

Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection, Orange County Public Library The county library’s local-history room at the Main Library in Hillsborough: books, journals, maps, and microfilm of county records from 1752
Local History Help Hours and request formOCPL Local History Liaison Meet with the Local History Liaison at the Main Library, usually Mondays from noon to 3 p.m., or send a question using the online request form

Background reading at OCPL

Books from OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection that provide broader context. They may not discuss Black Life & Civil Rights directly.

Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Upbuilding Black Durham: Gender, Class, and Black Community Development in the Jim Crow South Brown, Leslie · 2008
Leslie Brown's history of Black Durham, the community Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois both admired in the 1910s, from emancipation to the civil rights era. Drawing on interviews and family stories, Brown puts African American women at the center and argues that conflicts of gender and class among Black Durhamites fed their activism. UNC Press, 2008, in the John Hope Franklin series; 451 pages with maps.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History; African Americans -- North Carolina -- Durham -- Social conditions; African American women -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History OCPL call number: NC 305.896 BRO
Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901: The Black Second Anderson, Eric · 1981
Eric Anderson's political history of North Carolina's Second Congressional District, the Black Second, from 1872 to 1901. The district, where most counties had Black majorities, sent four Black Republicans to Congress: John A. Hyman, James E. O'Hara, Henry P. Cheatham and George H. White, who left in 1901 after the state's disfranchisement amendment of 1900. Louisiana State University Press published the study in 1981, with a bibliography and an index.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: African Americans -- North Carolina -- Politics and government; North Carolina -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950; North Carolina -- Race relations -- Political aspects OCPL call number: NC 305.896 AND
Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina Greene, Christina · 2005
Christina Greene's history of Black and white women in Durham's freedom movement, from the fight against Jim Crow in the 1940s through the protests of 1957 to 1963, neighborhood organizing among poor residents, the War on Poverty, Black Power politics and a boycott. Revised from her 1996 Duke doctoral thesis, it was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2005; 366 pages with bibliography and index.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Durham (N.C.) -- Race relations; African Americans -- Civil rights -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History -- 20th century; Civil rights movements -- North Carolina -- Durham -- History -- 20th century OCPL call number: 323.119 GRE

Search the Wall Collection for related books →

Picture: Public domain. Image credits →

More to discover

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