Abstract: John Kenyon Chapman (1947-2009), known as Yonni, was a life-long social justice activist, organizer, and historian who focused his academic and social efforts on workers rights and African American empowerment in central North Carolina. Chapman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1947; graduated from Harvard University in 1969; and then moved to Atlanta, Ga., to join the fight for African American equality. He relocated to North Carolina in 1975 and worked as a laboratory technician at the North Carolina Memorial Hospital for about ten years. During this time, Chapman became active in local social justice struggles and community organizations. He helped organize his coworkers against unfair working conditions, became involved with the Communist Workers Party, and participated in African liberation and anti-apartheid struggles. Chapman was a survivor of the Greensboro Massacre of 1979. Throughout the 1980s, he was active in progressive social justice campaigns. In the 1990s and 2000s, Chapman was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he focused his activism and academic work on historical accuracy, African American empowerment, and civil rights education in and around Chapel Hill. During this time, Chapman founded and directed two racial and social justice organizations: the Freedom Legacy Project in 1995 and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth in 2005. From 2002 to 2005, Chapman ran a successful campaign to abolish the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on campus, an action that opened a dialogue about the history of slavery and racism on campus. After a 30-year battle with cancer, Chapman died on 22 October 2009 in Chapel Hill. The collection documents Yonni Chapman’s social activism and academic activities, covering nearly four decades of progressive racial, social, and economic justice struggles in central North Carolina. Organizational correspondence, notes, newsletters, and reports document the activities of the Communist Workers Party, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, the New Democratic Movement, the Freedom Legacy Project, and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, among other organizations on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus and in Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, and Greensboro. Workers rights and racial justice campaigns and commemorations, including the Greensboro Massacre and the campaign to end the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on campus, are documented in paper, audio, visual, and photographic formats. Photographs, slides, contact prints, photographic negatives, posters, banners, signs, and screen-printed t-shirts, chiefly created by Chapman, document a variety of demonstrations, meetings, and social justice events. Audio and video materials, largely created by Chapman include documentaries, meetings, speeches, and demonstrations captured on audio cassettes, VHS tapes, 8mm video cassettes, and DVDs. Research materials for Chapman’s graduate doctoral work include audio and paper files of interviews with participants in the Chapel Hill civil rights movement. There are also audio files recorded by Chapman on a digital voice recorder in the year leading up to his death that contain lengthy discussions with local activists about continuing his social justice work after his death; audio recordings and a video photograph montage from Chapman’s 2009 memorial service; photographs of Chapman with friends and family; and other items.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Of particular note are the materials related to the Communist Party in Series 1, as well as materials documenting the Greensboro Massacre that took place at an anti-Klan Rally in 1970. Series 6 also contains materials related to numerous social justice and civil rights organizations that Yonni Chapman was involved in, including the Chapel Hill- Carrboro chapter of the NAACP. Subseries 7.1 contains audio recordings of oral histories interviews Yonni conducted with participants in the black freedom struggle and civil rights movement in Chapel Hill. There are also photographs and audio of numerous civil rights demonstrations, events, and programs.

Abstract: Raymond Bowden Mallard was born in Faison, N.C., in 1908. He was an attorney, state legislator, North Carolina Superior Court judge, and first chief judge of the North Carolina State Court of Appeals. Mallard died in 1979 in Tabor City, N.C. The collection documents Raymond B. Mallard’s judicial career and related civic activities. Materials include correspondence; briefs and other legal documents for a variety of cases, most of which probably duplicate the official records that are filed with the North Carolina Court System; writings; court notes; his diary from the Superior Court special terms of 1964; informal notes and annotations on envelopes and other materials; speeches; newspaper clippings; and photographs, including a few relating to the civil rights protests in Chapel Hill, N.C. The bulk of the materials documents Mallard’s judicial career on the North Carolina Superior Court and the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Topics include the establishment and function of the Court of Appeals; the trials stemming from the civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill; the North Carolina Civil Rights Advisory Committee’s reports on African American participation in instrumentalities of justice and voting history; judicial responsibility for protection of rights of the defendant in high profile cases; preparation and delivery of jury charges; inherent powers of the courts of North Carolina; the Henderson Cotton Mills trials; conflicts with the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI); inmate requests for parole and Mallard’s opinions on criminal recidivism; his interest in student activism on campus; and the North Carolina Bar Association position on legal aid clinics. The collection also documents Mallard’s early work as an attorney for the town of Tabor City, N.C., and board of trustee matters at Pembroke State College, including the conflict over administrative decisions and planning that purportedly diminished the roles and presence of Native Americans at the school.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folders 186-188, 196, 197 document cases in the Superior Court relating to Civil Rights. Folders 206-233 particularly contain legal documentation, clippings, letters, and other materials related to the Civil Rights protests in Chapel Hill in 1964.

Image Folder PF-5518/1 also contains a number of photographs of the protests from 1964.

Abstract: Daniel Hubbard Pollitt (1921-2010) was a law professor, civil liberties lawyer, progressive activist, and staunch advocate and defender of civil liberties and civil rights. The collection documents Daniel H. Pollitt’s legal career and his scholarly and public service interests and activities. The bulk of the collection consists of Pollitt’s subject files. Major topics include ABSCAM and other congressional ethics controversies; amnesty for draft dodgers and deserters; planning a law school with a focus on public service; civil rights, especially school desegregration and employment discrimination; the death penalty in North Carolina; government employee strikes; self-incrimination and the House Un-American Activities Committee, especially with regard to Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller; Hobby v. United States, a case about grand jury foreman selection that Pollitt argued before the United States Supreme Court; impeachment; labor, especially the reorganization of the National Labor Relations Board, migrant workers, and the Brookside Mine Strike in Harlan County, Ky.; the North Carolina speaker ban; and Supreme Court nominations. Numerous other topics are covered in these files, many of which concern narrower aspects of constitutional law, such as separation of church and state and search and seizure. Subject files also document long collaborations with a number of legal scholars, civil liberties attorneys, and government officials, including Congressman Frank Thompson, as well as Pollitt’s work with academic associations, government agencies, and civil liberties and civil rights groups, and his teaching career and his service to the University of North Carolina. Other smaller series in the collection include Biographical Materials; Correspondence and People Files, which refer to legal cases, writings, and career activities and developments of Pollitt and others, including Joseph L. Rauh Jr., Henry Edgerton, and H.L. Mitchell; Writings, which overlap considerably with the Subject Files; and Photographs, which are chiefly of Pollitt.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: There are a number of materials that deal with civil rights, civil liberties, employment discrimination, and social justice in this collection. Folder 86 contains correspondence regarding Pollitt’s analysis of school desegregation legislation in Arkansas. Folder 105 contains correspondence with Julius Chambers, former chancellor of North Carolina Central University.

Speech topics include the KKK and the Lumbee Indians (Folder 186), racial discrimination in employment practices (Folder 198) , and legal issues in school desegregation in the South (Folder 192). There are also various subject files related to African American history and civil rights organizations in Chapel Hill (Folders 325, 331). Several subject files deal with civil rights issues in Chapel Hill and throughout the South (Folders 337-350). There are also numerous files related to the death penalty in North Carolina, including discussions of race and subject files related to particular individuals (see Folders 618-740).

 

Abstract: Harvey E. Beech was born in Kinston, N.C., in 1923. He was a lawyer, philanthropist, and advocate of civil rights. While studying law in the early 1950s, Beech was asked to join a case against the University of North Carolina School of Law. In 1951, after a lengthy court battle, Beech and four other students became the first African Americans admitted to the UNC law school. He graduated in June 1952 and went on to practice law for more than 35 years. Harvey Beech died in August 2005. The collection includes letters and an student notebook from an English class. The notebook, with some pages dated 1939, includes a variety of coursework activities and exercises. Letters include a few addressed to Harvey Beech, 1980-1981, expressing gratitude for Beech’s campaign support for President Jimmy Carter and North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt; a few offering congratulations on Beech’s being chosen as “Citizen of the Year” in Kinston-Lenoir County; a 2002 letter thanking Beech and his wife for their contributions to the Free Press Newspaper in Education Literacy Program; and a 2004 letter thanking them for contributions to Bennett College.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Related collections on education and desegregation at UNC Chapel Hill include the J Kenneth Lee papers (4782), Karen Parker Papers (5275-z), Leroy Frasier Papers (4375-z), and the Floyd McKissick Papers (4930)

Abstract: Billy Brown Olive of Durham, N.C., is a North Carolina attorney who specializes in patent and intellectual property law. In 1957, he established Olive & Olive, the first patent law firm to serve the Research Triangle Park area, and taught proprietary and engineering law classes at the Duke School of Engineering and the School of Product Design at North Carolina State University. For more than 40 years, Olive was involved in civic affairs, specifically those relating to the environment and environmental racism. Locally, he was involved in the opposition to specific routes of Interstate 40 in Orange County, N.C., serving as coordinator with Opposition to I-40 in Orange County. He also opposed the Eubanks Road landfill site in Orange County, N.C. and the East/West Expressway route through the historically African American Crest Street community in Durham, N.C. The collection includes materials on environmental and social issues of interest to Billy Brown Olive, specifically his opposition to the Interstate 40 construction through Orange County, N.C.; the proposed landfill site near Eubanks Road in Orange County; and the proposed extension of the East/West Expressway (North Carolina Highway 147) through the historically African American Crest Street community in Durham, N.C. Interstate 40 papers consist of Olive’s office files related to Interstate 40 construction through North Carolina, including correspondence, meeting minutes of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, newspaper clippings, maps of routes, and petitions. Landfill site materials relate to the proposed placement of an Orange County landfill near Eubanks Road in Orange County, and include court documents, letters of opposition written by Olive, newspaper clippings, landfill drawings, and publications and reports. Crest Street papers include correspondence; court documents, specifically those related to the Save Our Church and Community Committee of Durham; maps of Duke Forest; publications and reports; and additional correspondence relating to I-40 construction in Durham. Also included is material related to the Orange County Municipal Waste Project, chiefly consisting of correspondence of Olive with state and local officials, newspaper staff, educators, and the Landfill Owners Group, but also including studies and reports on waste management. There are a few related photographs scattered throughout the collection.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: A number of the communities Mr. Olive worked with are African American, including the community on Crest Street. Series 3 contains correspondence, maps, and court proceedings relating to stopping the expansion of Interstate 40 through the Crest Street neighborhood.

Abstract: Southerners for Economic Justice (SEJ) was founded in 1976 during a successful campaign to help J. P. Stevens textile workers unionize. Since then, SEJ has focused on empowering the unemployed and working poor to develop community-based strategies to solve social problems associated with economic crisis. Records, 1977-2001, of Southerners for Economic Justice document the organization under the leadership of its first three directors: James Sessions, Leah Wise, and Cynthia D. Brown. Administrative records document the everyday operations and strategic planning of SEJ, as well as the organizational culture of a non-profit organization. Project and subject files document programmatic work, grassroots organizing, and related interests of the organization, especially unemployment due to plant closings, racist violence, environmental racism, shrinking union membership, contingent work, workplace health and safety reform, leadership training for minority women and youth, and literacy. Subject files also show collaboration with churches and like-minded organizations and grassroots activists at local, state, regional, national, and international levels to build and participate in support networks and coalition groups, including the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network, among many others. Highlights of SEJ’s documented activist work include the J. P. Stevens campaign; the Schlage Lock campaign; the workers’ bill of rights for city employees of Durham, N.C.; Betrayal of Trust: Stories of Working North Carolinians, a report published in 1989 that documents workplace discrimination and wrongful firing of workers; the Hamlet, N.C., coalition for workplace safety reform; the Working Women’s Organizing Project; Youth for Social Change; and Voices of Experience, a collaborative group that advised and advocated for people experiencing welfare reform. Other materials include an extensive collection of economic and social justice newsletters and photographs, chiefly documenting SEJ meetings and events, but also showing Durham, N.C., scenes.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: SEJ’s chief constituency during the 1980s was dislocated and marginalized workers, often low income or unemployed and injured women of color. Development of leadership and organizational skills in African American youth became a second focus later in the decade. Of note are the Project files (in Series 3.2). Of particular note in Series 3 (Records) are Box 20 – 23 [“Betrayal of Trust”], which contains documentation related to dislocated workers; Box 23 [“Black Workers for Justice” and “Center for Democratic Renewal”]. There is documentation on youth groups as well [Box 78]. Box 36 – 38 contains records on plant closings on how workers, including African Americans, were affected. Box 38 – 40 [“Racism and Violence”] contains information on numerous groups and topics, including the Ku Klux Klan killings in Greensboro.

Abstract: Material related to Delta Cooperative Farm, Rochdale, Miss.: articles, clippings, and other items; notes made by Vanderwood of the Memphis, Tenn., “Press-Scimitar”; and letters, 1964, to Vanderwood from Constance Rumbough and David R. Minter recounting in some detail their experiences as workers at the farm in the 1930s.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Delta Cooperative Farm of Rochdale, Miss., was a philanthropically supported endeavor founded in 1936 to help southern agricultural labrorers out of their economic plight. Interracial efforts on the farm were primarily interested in establishing economic equality between African Americans and whites who worked together for equal wages.

This collection contains correspondence, documents, and other misc. materials such as two published articles from the Arkansas Historical Quarterly (1960-1961) about the Blaine Race Riots in 1919. There is also the copy of an article entitled “The Voice of the Disinherited: A Brief History of the Agricultural Workers Union, 1934-1959”.

This collection contains materials that have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid and to access the digital material.

For more related materials about Delta Cooperative Farm, please also see the Delta Health Center Records. Click here to access that finding aid.

Abstract: The North Carolina Fund, an independent, non-profit, charitable corporation, sought and dispensed funds to fight poverty in North Carolina, 1963-1968. Gov. Terry Sanford and other North Carolinians convinced the Ford Foundation to grant $7 million initial funding for a statewide anti- poverty effort aimed at rural and urban communities. This money–plus additional funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation; the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation; the U.S. Dept. of Labor; U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare; U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development; and the Office of Economic Opportunity–enabled the Fund to support a broad program of education, community action, manpower development, research and planning, and other efforts to fight poverty. Records of the North Carolina Fund, primarily the files of the central office staff, especially Executive Director George Hyndman Esser (1921- ), and records of the Manpower Improvement Through Community Effort (MITCE) program. Among the programs documented are the North Carolina Volunteers; training of community action technicians to work in North Carolina and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA); a summer internship and curriculum development program; and research on poverty in North Carolina, community problems in areas served by community action programs, the community action process, and manpower and economic development. Also documented are programs funded by the North Carolina Fund, chief among them the 11 community action agencies and the projects they operated. Two grassroots organizations of poor people also received financial support from the North Carolina Fund, as did programs to improve education in North Carolina, manpower programs, and low-income housing programs. Records related to attacks on the North Carolina Fund’s programs shed light on politics and race relations, as well as on economic and social conditions in North Carolina in the 1960s. Note that there are separate catalog records for the Administrative Series; the Volunteer Programs Series; the Training Programs Series; the 11 Community Action Programs; the Manpower Programs Series; the Research Department Series; the Study Committee Series; and the Public Information Department Series.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Official records of a five-year experimental antipoverty agency that conducted studies and surveys of low-income housing, food, community organization, and other aspects of poverty. Many records in this voluminous collection document the experiences of African American and the intersections of poverty, race, and class.

Some materials from this collection have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digitized content.

For an in depth analysis of the North Carolina Fund, politics, and race, see the book To Right These Wrongs: he North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America by Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis. Click here for more information about this publication

Abstract: English professor, Presbyterian churchman, civil rights leader, and farmer of Mayesville, S.C. The bulk of the papers consists of writings, correspondence, subject files, and administrative records relating to Dabbs’s activities as professor of English, churchman, civil rights leader, Penn Community Services trustee, and farmer. Very little family correspondence is included and there are few items dating before the mid-1920s, but most facets of Dabbs’s professional involvements and interests are covered. Topics of writings, correspondence, and subject files include observations on social and political issues of the day, concerns about racial inequalities, and Dabbs’s own life and religious beliefs. Dabbs’s leadership of civil rights councils, religious organizations, and the Board of Trustees of Penn Community Services are well documented. Note that all letters are not in the correspondence series; some are included in subject files. Correspondents of note included Isabell Fiske Conant and Sarah Patton Boyle.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection includes letters commenting on the treatment of blacks, occasional hate-mail letters prompted by Dabbs’s civil rights activism and writings, Dabbs’s articles on desegregation, and research material Dabbs collected in files, bearing titles such as “Freedom of Thought in Southern Colleges” (which contains correspondence between Dabbs and professors at southern institutions about the issue of freedom to comment on desegregation events) and “The economic effect of the racial struggle.”

Abstract: Youth Educational Services, Inc., a Durham, N.C., non-profit organization dedicated to channeling the efforts of college students in North Carolina into constructive, action-related services. Records of Youth Educational Services, Inc., 1963-1968, include minutes of board meetings and reports on programs.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection