Storyline
The two-year campaign for a recreation tax district around Chapel Hill and Carrboro: the Jaycees’ petition, Carrboro’s wish to stay out, the hearing where integration came up, the 1957 vote that turned it down and the private plans that followed.
In briefChapel 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.
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No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Politics & Government.
In April 1955 the General Assembly passed an act for a Chapel Hill-Carrboro recreation district, and Carrboro's town board asked to be left out. The Chapel Hill Jaycees petitioned for a tax of up to 10 cents and $250,000 in bonds, filing about 1,150 freeholders' names in December 1956. At the January 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 on April 2 voters turned down the tax 1,176 to 514.
Private backers formed Chapel Hill Recreation Center, Inc. under the Rev. Charles Hubbard, John W. Umstead and his family offered land on Bolin Creek, and in October 1959 its directors authorized bids on a building there. In 1961 a student council took over the town's white teen recreation program, and the aldermen let a Recreation Commission spend town money and hire a director. In 1962 Exchange Pools, Inc. let a contract in March and opened a pool off Umstead Drive on July 15, on two acres Umstead had given beside the center.
In 1963, short of Community Chest money, the commission campaigned for a recreation tax; voters approved it that spring, the town budget carried seven cents for it, and a new 12-member commission was named in September. In November 1964 the Chamber of Commerce backed a public recreation complex at the new high school site, and the aldermen accepted the Umstead family's gift of a two-acre recreation field.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 20 dated events in the chronology →
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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.
Background reading on Politics & Government. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Willis P. Whichard's biography of David Lowry Swain, governor of North Carolina from 1832 to 1835 and president of the University of North Carolina from 1835 until his death in 1868. The subtitle ties Swain, nineteenth-century North Carolina and the university together, and the book belongs with the lives of college presidents and governors. Published in 2022.
Stewart E. Dunaway's life of Edmund Fanning (1739-1818), the colonial officeholder in Hillsborough whom the Regulators singled out and who left North Carolina as a loyalist, together with the Fanning family's genealogy. Self-published through Lulu in 2011, 223 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, genealogical tables and maps. Topics include American loyalists and Hillsborough and Orange County biography and genealogy.
Howard E. Covington Jr.'s biography of Albert Coates (1896-1989), the law professor who founded the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina and led it through its early years. Topics include Coates as a law teacher and the institute's history as a center for the study of public administration in Chapel Hill. Published in 2010 by the University Library at Chapel Hill, 322 pages with 32 pages of plates.
Howard N. Lee (born 1934) tells his own story, from a farm childhood in Lithonia, Georgia, through college, army service in Korea at Camp Casey and the move from Savannah that planted him in Chapel Hill, to his election as mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969 and his later run for Congress and years in the state legislature. Published by Cotton Patch Press of Chapel Hill in 2008, 199 pages with plates.
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.
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.
Race, sports and student protest at UNC are the subjects of this fourth interview with law professor Daniel H. Pollitt, recorded February 15, 1991, by Ann McColl for the Southern Oral History Program. Pollitt discusses the integration of Carolina athletics, including basketball player Charlie Scott, the university's first Black scholarship athlete, the discrimination Black athletes met, student activism from the late 1950s through the 1960s, and the Campus Y. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
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.
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.
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.
Second of two Southern Oral History Program interviews with Anne Queen (1911-2005), who came to Chapel Hill after years as an industrial worker and went on to direct the Campus YWCA-YMCA, a center of student activism. Recorded November 22, 1976, by Joseph Herzenberg, this hour-long conversation covers how Queen saw politics in the South and the nation change through the mid-twentieth century, and student political activity at UNC. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Ashley Davis, who entered UNC in 1968 and joined the Black Student Movement, recalls the 1969 strike by the university's cafeteria workers and the BSM's decision to stand with them when the workers asked. Recorded April 12, 1974, by Russell Rymer for the Southern Oral History Program, the hour-and-a-half interview touches on Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the Southern Student Organizing Committee and race relations among students on campus. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
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