Skip to content
Orange County Public Library (opens the library’s website in a new tab)

Named event or history

Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964

Sit-ins, marches and the Holy Week Fast that desegregated Chapel Hill’s businesses.

In briefNine Lincoln High students began Chapel Hill's sit-ins at Colonial Drug on February 28, 1960. Through 1963 and 1964 Black residents and UNC students picketed, marched and sat in, and held a Holy Week fast at the post office, but the aldermen narrowly rejected a public accommodations ordinance and many businesses stayed segregated until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

112 indexed works are connected with this event. 2 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
St. Joseph C.M.E. Church on West Rosemary Street
St. Joseph C.M.E. Church on West Rosemary Street

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this event. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Biography 32Interviews 31Histories 24Photographs & portraits 9Periodicals 4other types 9

Period

20th century 30World War II era 1

Place

Chapel Hill 106North Carolina (statewide) 39Carrboro 7Orange County 7City of Durham (neighboring) 6Durham County (neighboring) 1

Brazen: Race, Gentrification, and the Path of My Own Life

Parrish, Theodore · 2025 · Chapel Hill Historical Society

Theodore Parrish's memoir of a Black life in Chapel Hill and of gentrification in the town, subtitled race, gentrification, and the path of my own life. Published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in August 2025, 243 pages with illustrations. Subjects include African Americans in Chapel Hill, race relations and gentrification in North Carolina; a first-person account from a recent year of the society's publishing.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations.

UNC

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.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: African Americans -- History -- 20th century -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Civil rights.

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

Courage in the Moment

Wallace, Jim · 2012 · Dover Publications

Jim Wallace photographed the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill in the early 1960s while on assignment there, and this 2012 Dover volume prints his pictures with text. Sections cover pickets, sit-ins and the police, the speaker ban, the March on Washington, mass protest and human chains, passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Ku Klux Klan's response and the movement's resolution, with a chronology and a 'where are they now' section. 109 pages, oblong format.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century -- Pictorial works.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Chapel Hill PL Durham Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Oral history interview with Charles M. Jones, November 8, 1976: interview B-0041, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Jones, Charles Miles · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

A longer Southern Oral History Program interview with Presbyterian minister Charles M. Jones (1906-1993), recorded November 8, 1976, by Joseph A. Herzenberg. Jones traces his civil rights work in Chapel Hill from the 1930s into the 1960s. He characterizes town and university leaders, Frank Porter Graham among them, as cautiously liberal on race, willing to allow a little integration at performances and student activities, and describes the church's place in the town's social conflicts. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, April 5, 1991: interview L-0064-7, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Seventh of nine Southern Oral History Program interviews with Daniel H. Pollitt, a professor at the UNC School of Law. Recorded April 5, 1991, by Ann McColl, this session of just under an hour is devoted to the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 act of the General Assembly that barred Communists and certain other speakers from state campuses, and to the fight over it at Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s, in which Pollitt took part. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Civil rights workers -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- Interviews.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, March 21-22, 1991: interview L-0064-6, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sixth Pollitt interview, recorded March 21 and 22, 1991, by Ann McColl, about an hour long. Its single subject is the 1969 strike by food service workers at UNC, which Pollitt supported. He sets the strike in its local and national context, the labor and civil rights currents of the late 1960s, then follows how it unfolded among the workers, their union backers, the faculty and the university administration. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

NC Cardinal UNC
Show 6 more

Oral history interview with Pat Cusick, June 19, 1989: interview L-0043, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Cusick, Pat · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Pat Cusick, a civil rights worker in Chapel Hill during the 1960s, was interviewed by Pamela Dean in June 1989. He explains how his schooling and military service changed his thinking about race, his frustration with campus liberalism at UNC, and his turn to civil disobedience as a student organizer in the town. Topics include civil rights workers, college student political activity and race relations in Chapel Hill. About two and a half hours; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2008 through Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Quinton E. Baker, February 23, 2002: interview K-0838, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Baker, Quinton E. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Quinton E. Baker, a Black gay man who took part in the Chapel Hill civil rights protests of the 1960s, was interviewed by Chris McGinnis in February 2002. He describes growing up under segregation with little contact with white people, an early awareness of his sexuality, and the way race and sexual identity together shaped his activism as a college student. About two and a half hours; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2008, through Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations.

NC Cardinal UNC

I raised my hand to volunteer: students protest in 1960s Chapel Hill : an exhibit of the Manuscripts Department in the Wilson Library

Hollingsworth, Biff · 2007

Catalog of an exhibit mounted by the Manuscripts Department of Wilson Library from January 23 to May 31, 2007, on student protest in Chapel Hill during the 1960s. Topics include civil rights demonstrations, the Speaker Ban Law, the Black Student Movement, restaurant strikes and Vietnam War protests at the university. Compiled by Biff Hollingsworth, 59 pages with illustrations and facsimiles, published by the university library.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Civil rights movements -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- History -- 20th century -- Exhibitions.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Oral history interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001: interview K-0216, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Regester, Charlene B. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Charlene Regester (born 1956) recalls being one of the first Black children to attend Chapel Hill's white elementary schools, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded February 23, 2001, by Susan Upton. Her parents, convinced that integrated schools would give Black children better resources, petitioned for her transfer to Estes Hills Elementary, then all white, and Regester describes what those years were like for her. About 45 minutes. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, February 22, 2001: interview K-0215, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

A separate interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, recorded February 22, 2001, by David Potorti for the Southern Oral History Program, 75 minutes long. Pollitt traces his liberal convictions on race and religion to a family of ministers, soldiers and lawyers, describes clerking for an appeals court judge, and recounts his part in the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill: opposition to local segregation, school integration in North Carolina, and student movements at the university. Published online in 2007 in Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, November 19, 1990: interview L-0048, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Law professor Daniel H. Pollitt remembers Anne Queen (1911-2005), director of UNC's Campus Y, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded November 19, 1990, by Cindy Cheatham. Queen's commitment to social justice matched Pollitt's own work for racial equality and support of student activists, and he describes her Campus Y as the place where students concerned with civil rights in segregated Chapel Hill gathered and learned to organize. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Chapel Hill (N.C.) -- Race relations.

NC Cardinal UNC

Search all 112 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this event. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this event itself.

  • 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.

  • Wider context · 323.119 GRE 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.

  • Wider context · 975.6 DRE Triumph of Good Will: How Terry Sanford Beat A Champion of Segregation and Reshaped the South Drescher, John · 2000

    The 1960 Democratic primary for governor, in which Terry Sanford, campaigning on education and a moderate line on integration, beat the segregationist law professor I. Beverly Lake, is the subject of John Drescher's book. Part campaign history and part biography of Sanford, it argues that his approach became a model for later Southern Democrats such as Jim Hunt, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2000.

Show 1 more

In the chronology

Episodes in this history, earliest first. Each has its own page.

The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–19641963 to 1964 · 16 events · Marches, sit-ins and arrests over segregated businesses from 1963 into 1964, the aldermen's refusal of a public accommodations ordinance, the Holy Week fast, and the Watts Restaurant protests and the Klopfer speedy-trial case that grew out of them. Chapel Hill Nine sit-in, 1960Nine Lincoln High students sit in at Colonial Drug on Franklin Street Holy Week Fast, 1964The fast on the Franklin Street post office lawn that pressed for a public accommodations ordinance

Other dated events here: sixteen of 35, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 35 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events

  1. The Fellowship of Southern Churchmen runs its headquarters from Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill

    The Fellowship of Southern Churchmen, an interracial group of Southern church people founded in 1934, kept its headquarters in Chapel Hill while Nelle Morton was general secretary from 1945 to 1949, working on race relations, labor conditions and the rural South.

    People: Charles M. Jones · Anne Queen

  2. Lincoln High students picket Colonial Drug and sit in at the Bus Station Cafe

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    The day after the sit-in, nearly 100 Black high school students picketed Colonial Drug after manager John Carswell roped off its booths, while others filled the counter at the Bus Station Cafe until proprietor Leo Eliadis closed it and were served standing at the Long Meadow Dairy Bar.

    People: Harold Foster · Hilliard Caldwell

    Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

  3. The Chapel Hill CORE Committee rejects a second truce and resumes picketing as 27 ministers back the protests

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    After a week-long pause the students' 12-member executive committee, led by Harold Foster, declined the Human Relations Committee's request for a second truce and resumed afternoon picketing at Colonial Drug and Long Meadow Dairy. Twenty-seven Chapel Hill ministers issued a statement commending the peaceful, non-violent picketing.

    People: Harold Foster · Dudley Dewitt Carroll

  4. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks in Chapel Hill

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Invited by campus religious groups and the Carolina Forum, King spoke at University Baptist Church on May 8, 1960, visited two UNC sociology classes, and addressed an overflow crowd in Hill Hall on May 9 on the struggle for racial justice.

    People: Martin Luther King, Jr

    Subject: Hill Hall · University Baptist Church

  5. Student pickets begin marching outside the segregated College Cafe

    Protest or organizing · 115 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The Student Peace Union and the NAACP put pickets in front of the segregated College Cafe on East Franklin Street, saying they would keep on until it integrated. The picketing led to the forming of the Committee for Open Business that May.

    Subject: College Cafe

  6. NAACP chapter pickets North Carolina Memorial Hospital over segregated rooms and wards

    Protest or organizing · North Carolina Memorial Hospital, Chapel Hill

    The UNC chapter of the NAACP organized a picket in April 1963 to protest that private rooms and certain wards for Black patients at the hospital were still segregated, although outpatient clinics, recovery rooms, pediatrics and the cafeteria had been integrated. Hospital officials opposed the demonstration.

    Part of Segregation and access to medical care · 14 events

    Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

  7. Aldermen hear Daniel Pollitt's opinion that Chapel Hill may pass a public accommodations law, then shelve it

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Town Hall

    At a Town Hall hearing attended by more than 200 people, Mayor Sandy McClamroch read an opinion by Pollitt that Chapel Hill had the authority to enact a public accommodations ordinance and that similar laws elsewhere had withstood court tests. The Board of Aldermen then voted 4 to 2 to postpone the ordinance indefinitely.

    Part of The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 · 16 events

    People: Sandy McClamroch

  8. George Esser proposes an ordinance barring discrimination by new Chapel Hill businesses

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    After the aldermen declined a public accommodations law in June, Esser suggested as a private citizen an ordinance that would bar racial discrimination by businesses opening in the future, applied like zoning rules. The Board of Aldermen began considering it in August while the Committee for Open Business kept up its marches.

    Part of The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 · 16 events

  9. Watts Restaurant protests

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Sit-ins at the segregated Watts Restaurant and Motel on South Columbia Street began on January 2, 1964. Over the next days demonstrators were urinated on, hosed and struck with a broom handle, and Duke and UNC faculty were among those arrested. The owners held out after the Civil Rights Act and desegregated on July 10, 1964.

  10. Institute of Government delivers its report on Chapel Hill's power to pass a public accommodations law

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    A report prepared by George Esser at the aldermen's request, gathering cases from all fifty states on a town's power to pass a public accommodations law, was completed and handed to Town Manager Robert Peck for the aldermen days before their vote. Esser said it showed the probable attitude of North Carolina courts toward a town using its general welfare power for that purpose.

    Part of The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 · 16 events

    Subject: Institute of Government

  11. The Holy Week fast began on the Franklin Street post office lawn

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    At sunrise on Palm Sunday, Freedom Committee members John Dunne, Pat Cusick, James Foushee and the Rev. LeVert Taylor began an eight-day, water-only fast on the grounds of the Chapel Hill post office, planned to last through Easter. The fast was aimed at the Board of Aldermen, and a fifth faster joined within two days.

    Subject: Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza

  12. The Holy Week fast ends on Easter Sunday and the Rev. LaVert Taylor is hospitalized

    Closing or ending · Chapel Hill

    The five fasters finished their eight-day water-only fast in front of the post office on Easter Sunday. The Rev. LaVert Taylor of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was admitted to Memorial Hospital with an upset stomach afterward; James Foushee had been treated there during the fast and released.

    People: Pat Cusick

    Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

  13. Chapel Hill Recorder's Court fines the man who struck a student at the post office fast

    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill

    Judge William S. Stewart fined Milford Cordell Hill $50 and costs for striking Louis S. Calhoun Jr. at the scene of the fast on March 28, on complaints sworn out by the police officers who saw it.

  14. Austin Watts and his staff attack civil rights testers at Watts Restaurant

    Violence or armed conflict · 3819 South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill

    The night after the Civil Rights Act was signed, a mixed group of testers seeking service at Watts Restaurant was turned away and, the testers said, attacked with fists and clubs, and owner Austin Watts was charged with striking Pete Leak. Watts was convicted of assault in Chapel Hill Recorder's Court on July 21 and fined the costs of court.

  15. Harper and Row publishes John Ehle's The Free Men, an account of the Chapel Hill protests

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Ehle's nonfiction book traced the 1963–1964 civil rights campaign in Chapel Hill through three of its leaders, John Dunne, Pat Cusick and Quinton Baker, from the first pickets at a cafe to mass arrests and long prison sentences.

    People: Pat Cusick

  16. The Town of Chapel Hill unveils the Chapel Hill Nine marker at the Colonial Drug site

    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill

    On the sixtieth anniversary of the sit-in the town dedicated sculptor Stephen Hayes's stone-based marker at 450 West Franklin Street, naming the nine students; four of them, Dave Mason Jr., James Merritt, Douglas Perry and Albert Williams, attended the unveiling.

    People: David Mason Jr. · James Merritt · Douglas Perry · Albert Williams

Places in this history

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

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Background context 7

Background from selected state and local sources

Show all 7

Read contemporary evidence 4

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

Additional research sources

Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.

Related themes

Schools & Education →UNC & Campus Life →School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1959–1967 →Segregated housing and neighborhood boundaries →

Picture: St. Joseph C.M.E. Church on West Rosemary Street. CC0. Photograph by Jun0002o; via Wikimedia Commons

More to discover

Keep Reading Local

The Friends connect people with new library materials, local writers and publishers, and resources documenting Orange County.

Browse New Arrivals → Meet Local Authors → Explore Local Publishers →
Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026