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Storyline

Segregated housing and neighborhood boundaries

How race drew Chapel Hill’s residential map: deed covenants in new subdivisions, realtors who steered Black buyers away, and the town’s 1968 open housing ordinance.

In briefNew 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.

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2 works about Segregated housing and neighborhood boundaries are indexed here.

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In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 15 dated events in the chronology →

  1. The Order of Gimghouls plats its Chapel Hill subdivision with racial deed restrictions The Junior Order of Gimghouls subdivided its land east of campus into house lots, with a plat recorded in Orange County Plat Book 1, page 51. The original deed covenants carried the racial restrictions standard for the period, along with setbacks and a requirement that the order review house plans. People: Thomas Felix HickersonLiving Places: Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District (adapted from the 1993 National Register nomination by M. Ruth Little)
  2. William C. Coker's Rocky Ridge lot deeds restrict the race of residents In selling the lots of his Rocky Ridge Farm development, Coker wrote covenants into the deeds that set the number of buildings, the cost of houses and, in the early deeds, the race of the residents. These private restrictions governed the neighborhood before Chapel Hill had residential zoning. People: William Chambers CokerNC State Historic Preservation Office: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District, National Register nomination (OR0303), p. 13
  3. Chapel Hill adopts its first zoning ordinance The Board of Aldermen unanimously adopted an ordinance dividing the town into two residence zones and two business zones, with height limits, setbacks, yard rules and a board of adjustment. The published text makes no reference to race. People: Edward M. KnoxThe Chapel Hill Weekly, June 22, 1928, p. 1
  4. A survey of the Sunset neighborhood finds most Black homes without running water In an article published November 10, 1939, Rev. Donald H. Stewart of the Presbyterian church gave Health Department figures for the 72 houses in the Black Sunset section, most of them inside the town limits: only 10 had water inside, 6 had baths, 56 used privies and 4 had none, 70 percent had no screens and 95 percent no means of garbage disposal. He counted five telephones in the whole Black community and one hydrant for Sunset, and he laid the blame on the town's comfortable 'good' people.The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 10, 1939, p. 3
  5. A town meeting hears a federal housing official on clearing Chapel Hill's slums Called by the Chapel Hill Housing Committee to discuss the bad housing in the western part of town, mostly the homes of Black families, a town meeting at the Town Hall on March 11 heard Langdon Post of the U. S. Housing Authority explain how a slum-clearance project could be started, with modern four-room cottages renting for $9 to $12 a month. Black residents made up most of the audience, Training School principal H. M. Holmes and Charles Craig spoke for them, and the visitors had toured the slum areas of Chapel Hill and Carrboro that day. People: Joseph Hyde Pratt, Charles C. Craig, Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, March 15, 1940, p. 1
  6. Citizens petition Chapel Hill aldermen for a public housing authority A petition signed by 27 citizens asked the Chapel Hill aldermen to create a public housing authority, the legal first step toward federal aid. At their Tuesday evening meeting the aldermen received it and put off action until the District Planning Board reported on urban renewal and public housing, and asked the town manager to draft a minimum housing standards ordinance.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 26, 1961, p. 2
  7. Pat Cusick is ordered out of his rented house after hosting a Black NAACP field worker According to the Conscience, Committee for Open Business leader Pat Cusick was told before Chapel Hill's justice of the peace to leave his house by August 12, after he let a Black NAACP field worker working with the committee stay there for two days. The landlord, the university's superintendent of buildings and grounds, cited overdue rent and a mess, while the Conscience said the reason was the guest's race. People: Pat CusickThe Chapel Hill Conscience, August 24, 1963, p. 1
  8. Realtors steer Howard and Lillian Lee away from white subdivisions After moving to Chapel Hill for graduate study, Howard and Lillian Lee searched for about six months while realtors hesitated to show them houses in white subdivisions. They bought in Colony Woods, then received threatening calls and had a cross burned on their lawn. People: Howard N. LeeUNC Libraries, North Carolina Miscellany: May 1969: Howard Lee
  9. Chapel Hill aldermen vote down a public accommodations ordinance The Board of Aldermen rejected, 4 to 2, an ordinance that would have required all town businesses to serve Black customers, and set up a nine-member committee on race relations instead. Integration leaders promised more demonstrations. People: Adelaide WaltersThe Daily Tar Heel, January 14, 1964, p. 1
  10. The Citizens Committee for Progress protests a public housing site in a Black neighborhood A Black delegation led by Mrs. Vivian Foushee of the Citizens Committee for Progress asked the Chapel Hill aldermen not to annex the Gomains Avenue area the Housing Authority wanted for most of a 60-unit, $900,000 public housing project. They objected to its cost and to placing it in an all-Black area, and named three other sites; Mayor Sandy McClamroch said the Housing Authority, not the aldermen, chose sites. People: Sandy McClamrochThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 28, 1964, p. 8
  11. Neighbors protest a public housing site on North Columbia Street Some 40 to 60 residents of the Pritchard Avenue and North Columbia Street area, with attorney John T. Manning as chief spokesman, filed petitions with the District Planning Board against putting about ten apartments of the public housing project on Milton Abernethy's 1.7-acre tract. Most said it would lower their property values; Vivian Foushee and Hilliard Caldwell of the Citizens Committee for Progress spoke for the site, and the board tabled its endorsement. People: Hilliard CaldwellThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 9, 1964, p. 3
  12. Adelaide Walters chairs the Inter-Church Council's housing committee After leaving the Board of Aldermen, Adelaide Walters chaired the housing committee of the Inter-Church Council for Social Service (later the Inter-Faith Council) from 1966 to 1973. Her papers deal with civil rights for Black residents of Chapel Hill and with urban and regional planning.Search the index · UNC Libraries, Southern Historical Collection: Adelaide Walters Papers, 1954-1981
Show all 15 dated events
  1. Chapel Hill builds its first public housing at Craig-Gomains and Lindsay Street Chapel Hill's first public housing neighborhoods were Craig-Gomains (40 units) and Lindsay Street (9 units), both built in 1967; in November 1967 the units were still being readied for occupancy, so the first tenants moved in late 1967 or in 1968. Both remain in the town's 296-unit, 12-neighborhood public housing portfolio.Town of Chapel Hill: Public Housing Neighborhoods
  2. Chapel Hill aldermen approve an open housing ordinance 3 to 2 on first reading Weeks after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. and a petition signed by about 2,200 people, the Board of Aldermen voted 3 to 2 for a local ban on discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. The margin fell short of the two-thirds needed to pass on first reading, so the measure went to a second vote. People: Sandy McClamroch, R. D. Smith, W. David Ethridge, Robert VarleyThe Daily Tar Heel, April 28, 1968, p. 3
  3. Chapel Hill adopts North Carolina's first local open housing ordinance On second reading the Board of Aldermen passed the open housing ordinance 4 to 0, effective immediately, making it a misdemeanor for an owner to discriminate by religion, race, color or national origin in selling or renting property in town. The penalty was a fine of up to $50 or up to 30 days in jail. People: Sandy McClamroch, W. David EthridgeThe Daily Tar Heel, May 15, 1968, p. 1

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 the 2 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.

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Indexed works

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

The failure of the scattered site housing policy in Chapel Hill

Bagchi, Neil · 1999

Neil Bagchi's 1999 paper on scattered site public housing in Chapel Hill, the policy of spreading subsidized units across neighborhoods instead of concentrating them in one place. The title states the verdict. Housing discrimination, public housing and town housing policy all run through it. Typescript, with a bibliography on leaves 58 to 60.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Discrimination in housing -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

UNC

A policy recommendation for dormitory desegregation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Giattina, Anna · 1983 · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Anna Giattina's 1983 thesis recommending a policy for desegregating the dormitories at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Topics include discrimination in housing in Chapel Hill, dormitories, and student housing at the university. A typescript of vi and 150 leaves with color maps, it records how residence hall assignment was being argued in Chapel Hill in the early 1980s.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Discrimination in housing -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

UNC

Start at OCPL

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

  • 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.

  • Wider context · NC 371.979 WAL Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South Siddle Walker, Vanessa · 1996

    Vanessa Siddle Walker's case study of the Caswell County Training School, a school for Black students in segregated Caswell County, and of the community around it. Caswell was formed from Orange County in 1777, with Yanceyville as its seat. UNC Press, 1996; 259 pages with illustrations, a map, a bibliography and an index.

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Related themes

Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 →Black Life & Civil Rights →The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 →Schools & Education →School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1954–1967 →UNC & Campus Life →

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