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Theme

Community & Civic Organizations

Clubs, lodges, mutual aid, and civic life.

In briefClubs, lodges, mutual-aid societies and civic groups did much of the county’s public work: the campaign for the Negro Public Library, the saving of the Eno, the freedom movement of the 1960s and the response to Hurricane Fran all ran through them. The records here are their histories and papers.

150 indexed works are connected with this theme. 1 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
A home demonstration club meeting, 1940.

Events and storylines

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

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 Saving the EnoThe 1966 association that stopped the reservoir plans and won the state park Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964Sit-ins, marches and the Holy Week Fast that desegregated Chapel Hill’s businesses Hurricane Fran, September 1996The storm that came through the county overnight on 5–6 September 1996, felling trees by the thousand and cutting power for days

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

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

Material

Periodicals 54Histories 34Handbooks & manuals 26Biography 15Interviews 15other types 27

Period

Colonial era (to 1775) 117th century 118th century 7Revolution (1775–1783) 419th century 15Civil War (1861–1865) 420th century 25World War I era 2

Place

Chapel Hill 89Orange County 68North Carolina (statewide) 58Carrboro 10Hillsborough 8Cane Creek 4

Widely held

African Americans of Durham and Orange counties : an oral history

Bolduc, Jean · 2016 · The History Press

Jean Bolduc's collection of oral history interviews with Black residents of Durham and Orange counties, published by The History Press in 2016, 125 pages with photographs and portraits. The narrators are the poet Jaki Shelton Green, civil rights lawyer Floyd McKissick, Walter Jackson, Nate Davis, Brenda Stephens, Diane Wright, Jackie Wagstaff and Michelle Johnson, and a closing chapter deals with the Ku Klux Klan. The interviews document Black life and race relations in the two counties across the twentieth century.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Davis, Nate, 1951?-.

NC Cardinal Duke Durham Wake Forest CH Historical Society UNC

African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties

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.

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

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 BOLDUC Duke

"Whites only" : a pastor's retrospective on signs of the new South

Seymour, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1925-2020 · 2011 · Chapel Hill Press

Robert E. Seymour, a Baptist pastor in Chapel Hill associated with Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church, looks back on segregation and race relations in the South from the pulpit. A clergyman's memoir covering church history in the town, Baptists in North Carolina and the segregation of African Americans. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2011, 204 pages.

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

UNC Library of Congress

A history of Epsilon Beta Chapter of Chi Omega at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1923-1999.

Clark, Blanche (Blanche R.) · 1999 · Epsilon Beta of Chi Omega House Corp.?

Chapter history of Epsilon Beta of Chi Omega at the University of North Carolina, covering 1923 to 1999 and written by Blanche Clark with Ann Thornburgh. Twenty nine unnumbered leaves with illustrations and a portrait, issued in Chapel Hill in 1999. Guion Griffis Johnson is among the people discussed.

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

UNC

House Joint Resolutions, April 17 - May 2

North Carolina. General Assembly · 1782

Joint resolutions of the House of Commons from April 17 to May 2, 1782, with messages, petitions and depositions. Among them are thanks to Thomas Burke, the Hillsborough lawyer who had been governor, a land dispute involving James Taylor and Edmund Pendleton of Virginia, and a poll tax exemption for Francis Falkner. 87 images.

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

NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Joint Select Committees: Reports and Papers, May 8 - May 18

North Carolina. General Assembly · 1782

From the 1782 session of the General Assembly, joint select committee reports and papers of 8 to 18 May, in 134 images. Captain James Reed, James Houston of Rowan County and George Meek are among those whose cases came before the committees. Other matters include State Legion officers, disabled veterans, price regulation, Cherokee affairs, Thomas Burke, and Hillsborough and Orange County.

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

NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

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Senate Joint Resolutions, May 16 - May 18

North Carolina. General Assembly · 1782

Resolutions of the North Carolina Senate from 16 to 18 May 1782: naming Thomas Davis public printer, favoring Joseph Pitman of Edgecombe County, obtaining clothing for Continental officers and soldiers, and answering a memorial of John Huske. Nathanael Greene, Jethro Sumner and the Battle of Eutaw Springs are among the names. 51 images, with Hillsborough tied to the session.

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

NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

August-September, 1780: Joint Select Committees (Reports of and messages concerning)

North Carolina. General Assembly · 1780

Reports and messages of joint select committees from August and September 1780, when the General Assembly met at Hillsborough after the defeat at Camden. Committees worked on supplies and provisions for the army and the adjustment of public claims. Horatio Gates, Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, William Hooper, hospitals, surgeons, cavalry and wagons all appear. 88 pages.

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

NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Recently indexed: New generation newsletter · Newsletter for the new generation (1984) · School of Social Work, UNC, Community Action Training Unit (1970) · [Chapel Hill comprehensive plan revision mailings] (1999) · League lines (1985) · Minutes of the Chapel Hill Community Council meeting on November 14, 1950 (1950)

Search all 150 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. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this theme itself.

  • Foundational · NC PER HILLSBOR Hillsborough Historical Society Journal 1998

    Journal of the Hillsborough Historical Society, seven illustrated volumes dated 2004. Articles cover the history and antiquities of Hillsborough and Orange County, so the run is a standing source for county history. Volumes measure 23 centimeters.

  • 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.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 330.975 EKI Poor Carolina: Politics and Society in Colonial North Carolina, 1729-1776 Ekirch, A. Roger · 1981

    A. Roger Ekirch's study of politics and society in colonial North Carolina between 1729, when the Crown bought the colony from the Lords Proprietors, and 1776. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1981, 305 pages with maps, it treats economic conditions, social structure and government in the decades when Orange County was created and Hillsborough became its seat.

Show 5 more
  • Foundational · NC 398 DUK The Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore: The Folklore of North Carolina, Collected by Dr. Frank C. Brown During the Years 1912 to 1943, in Collaboration With the North Carolina Folklore Society Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore · 1952

    Frank C. Brown of Duke University and the North Carolina Folklore Society, which he founded in 1913, gathered this folklore from 1912 to 1943 through his classes and trips into the mountains. Duke University Press published it from 1952 to 1964 in seven volumes under general editor Newman Ivey White, with wood engravings by Clare Leighton: games, customs, riddles, proverbs, speech and tales; ballads and folk songs with their music; and popular beliefs and superstitions.

  • Wider context · NC 975.604 BRO A Lasting Gift of Heritage: A History of the North Carolina Society for the Preservation of Antiquities, 1939-1974 Brook, David Louis Sterrett · 1997

    Founded in 1939 chiefly to see Tryon Palace rebuilt at New Bern, the North Carolina Society for the Preservation of Antiquities went on after the war to fight for old buildings across the state. David Louis Sterrett Brook, a former head of the State Historic Preservation Office, tells its story through 1974. Published in 1997 by the Division of Archives and History with Preservation North Carolina, 205 pages.

  • Wider context · NC 369.13 DAV Revolution's Godchild: The Birth, Death, and Regeneration of the Society of the Cincinnati in North Carolina Davis, Curtis Carroll · 1976

    Curtis Carroll Davis traces the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati, the state branch of the hereditary order formed by Continental Army officers in 1783, from its founding through its collapse and eventual revival. The University of North Carolina Press published it for the Society in 1976 in a numbered edition of 1,000 copies; 301 pages with illustrations, a bibliography and an index.

  • Wider context The North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal 1975

    The quarterly journal of the North Carolina Genealogical Society, published in Raleigh since 1975, with articles on North Carolina family research and transcriptions of original records. William D. Bennett compiled a consolidated index to its first ten years, 1975 to 1984, published in 1997, and Heritage Books has reprinted early volumes.

  • Wider context · NC 309.175 MAT Society in Revolutionary North Carolina Mathews, Alice Elaine · 1976

    Alice Elaine Mathews looks at North Carolina society during the Revolutionary War in this short study, number 8 in the bicentennial pamphlet series that the state Division of Archives and History published in 1976. Its 91 pages carry illustrations, a map and a bibliography.

In the chronology

Dated events connected with this theme: sixteen of 163, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 163 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events

  1. Continental officers organize the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati at James Hogg's cabin

    Founding or opening · near Hillsborough

    Former officers of the North Carolina Continental line gathered near Hillsborough in a cabin owned by the merchant James Hogg and founded the state's Society of the Cincinnati. They elected Jethro Sumner president, Thomas Clark vice president and Adam Boyd secretary. Sixty-six of the roughly six hundred commissioned officers the state sent to the war joined by contributing a month's pay.

    People: James Hogg · Adam Boyd

  2. Thomas Webb serves as Orange County's clerk and master in equity

    Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough

    Thomas Webb signed notices as clerk and master of the Court of Equity for Orange County, at his office in Hillsborough, from at least 1855 into 1862.

  3. The Junior Order of United American Mechanics sets up a lodge in Hillsborough

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    A lodge of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics was set up in Hillsborough. It later moved to Carrboro and then to Chapel Hill, where it operated as Davie Council No. 52.

  4. J. Cheshire Webb is appointed chairman of the Orange County Council of Defense

    Hillsborough

    J. Cheshire Webb of Hillsborough was appointed chairman of the Orange County Council of Defense, with M. C. S. Noble, C. H. Robertson, Shepperd Strudwick, S. W. Andrews, John P. Hughes and P. C. Collins as members. He led the council through the war and the 1919 homecoming.

    People: M. C. S. Noble · Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961)

  5. The Chapel Hill Red Cross starts a conservation committee that ships nut shells for gas masks

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    The chapter appointed a Committee on Conservation under Mrs. M. H. Stacy on September 1, 1918. On November 20 it shipped four barrels of nut shells for gas masks and seventeen pounds of tin foil.

  6. Rameses, the live ram mascot, makes his debut for Carolina

    Chapel Hill

    Head cheerleader Vic Huggins won athletic department approval and $25 to buy a ram as a mascot. Rameses first appeared at the football game against the Virginia Military Institute, which Carolina won 3-0.

  7. Townspeople and faculty form the Battle Park Association at Joseph Hyde Pratt's home

    Protest or organizing · Battle Park, Chapel Hill

    A meeting at Colonel Pratt's home launched a volunteer group to restore Kemp Battle's paths and bridges in Battle Park. By the end of 1931 it had cleared old walks, opened about three miles of trail and rebuilt the bridges.

    Subject: Battle Park

  8. Guion Griffis Johnson lectures in the Navy V-12 program at the University

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Johnson taught as a lecturer in the Naval V-12 program at the University of North Carolina in 1943–1944.

  9. Guion Griffis Johnson is president of the Chapel Hill Council of Churches

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    After returning to Chapel Hill from Atlanta in 1947, Johnson served on the boards of the Chapel Hill Community Council and Community Club, and in 1950 she was president of the Chapel Hill Council of Churches.

  10. Sophie Livas sells the Carolina Coffee Shop to Donald Belton

    Property or economic transaction · Carolina Coffee Shop, Chapel Hill

    Sophie Livas, who had run the Carolina Coffee Shop since her husband George's death in 1956, sold it to Donald Belton, who took over on February 1, 1957.

  11. 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

  12. Hank Anderson directs the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Department

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Henry "Hank" Anderson III, who took a master's degree in recreation administration at UNC in 1969, directed the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Department from 1969 to 1977.

  13. Robert Campbell helps start Faith Tabernacle Oasis of Love International Church

    Founding or opening · Rogers Road, Chapel Hill

    Campbell and his wife helped start Faith Tabernacle Oasis of Love International Church, where he was ordained in the 1980s. He has said his bishop's charge to the congregation to go beyond its own comfort turned him toward the landfill and the neighborhood's water.

  14. Orange County jury finds three former UNC officials discriminated against police officer Keith Edwards

    Law, policy or court · Orange County

    A jury ruled that former UNC officials John DeVitto, Charles Mauer and Robert Sherman had discriminated by race and gender against Keith Edwards, an 18-year veteran of the UNC police, and ordered them to pay $116,000 in damages. Alan McSurely, her lawyer, won his first jury trial with the case.

  15. UNC retires the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award after Yonni Chapman's campaign

    Closing or ending · UNC-Chapel Hill

    Chancellor James Moeser retired the Bell Award, given yearly since 1994 to a woman for outstanding contributions to the university, after graduate student Yonni Chapman led a campaign against it over Spencer's white supremacist and sexist views.

    People: James Moeser · Cornelia Phillips Spencer

  16. Hilliard Caldwell dies at 88

    Life event · Carrboro

    Caldwell, who advised the Lincoln High School students who held Chapel Hill's first sit-in in 1960 and later served on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, died on September 6, 2025. The town issued a statement remembering his service and courage.

    People: Barbara Foushee

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 25 with a known location.

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.

Show 21 more

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Background context 4

Background from selected state and local sources

Search beyond the index 6

Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

Show all 6

Ask locally 3

Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

Related themes

UNC & Campus Life →Schools & Education →Churches & Faith →Black Life & Civil Rights →Politics & Government →Women's Lives & History →

Picture: Farm Security Administration photograph by Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress; public domain. Image credits →

More to discover

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Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026