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: Timothy Duffy (1963- ), folklorist and musician, produced field recordings of the American roots tradition as an undergraduate at Warren Wilson College and while working on a folklore master’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A few years after graduating in 1991, he co-founded the Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF), a non-profit organization near Hillsborough, N.C., that helps southern roots tradition musicians meet their financial needs and gain recognition for their work. The collection includes chiefly sound recordings, but there are also artist files, CD liner proofs, correspondence, photographs, posters, documentation, video recordings, DVDs, and miscellaneous items. Most of the material relates to Duffy’s work with MMRF. Sound recordings include Duffy’s folklore thesis fieldwork in the Black Mountains of North Carolina and recordings of blues, gospel, and R& B artists such as Walt Davis, Ray Greene, Jeeter Riddle, James Guitar Slim Stephens, Etta Baker, Willa Mae Buckner, Guitar Gabriel, Cool John Ferguson, Cootie Stark, Cora Mae Bryant, Sammy Mayfield, Neal Pattman, Beverly Guitar Watkins, Jerry McCain, Essie Mae Brooks, Precious Bryant, Preston Fulp, Macavine Hayes, Algia Mae Hinton, John Dee Holeman, Captain Luke Mayer Luther, Taj Mahal, and the Greene Acres Picking Party. Some of the sound recordings include interviews with artists.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: There are sound recordings, oral histories, and artist files for numerous gospel, R&B, and blues artists.

Abstract: Folklorist and performer Joan Fenton earned a Masters degree in folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1981. She is the owner of several stores in Charlottesville, Va., that feature traditional and contemporary handicrafts. Sound recordings and related documentation. Sound recordings include interviews, songs, and tall tales by artists in the southern roots traditions from North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Louisiana. Fenton’s folklore thesis fieldwork about Howard Cotten, an African American tall tale teller in North Carolina, is represented by his songs, anecdotes, and tales about fishing and hunting that were recorded between 1976 and 1978. Also included are recordings from the 1978 John Henry Folk Festival where Hazel Dickens, Viola Clark, the Badgett Sisters, Walter Phelps, Ethel Phelps, Sparky Rucker, Pigmeat Jarrett, and Sweet Honey in the Rock performed. Interviews and sound recordings relating to Jamie Alston, Wilber Atwater, Willie Brooks, Dona Gum, Maggie Hammons, Sherman Hammons, Guy B. Johnson, Everett Lilly, Mitchell “Bea” Lilly, Varise Conner, Phillippe Bruneau, Carl Rutherford, and the Balfa Brothers are included. Also included are interviews with and songs of Charles Williams, a washboard player from White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., and Nat Reese, a guitarist and blues singer from Princeton, W. Va. Fenton is the primary interviewer on these recordings, some of which were made in performers’ homes where she accompanied them on guitar, but there are also a few field tapes done by others, including some with the Reverend Gary Davis in Jamaica, N.Y., 1971-1972 and others done by John Cohen in New York in the 1950s. Documentation of field recordings includes transcription notes from interviews conducted by Fenton and notes compiled from the audio material. Note that artists important in the collection appear as access points in this record.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Anecdotes and tales about fishing and hunting, animals (Rooster and Buzzard, etc.) as told by African-American storyteller Howard Cotten, recorded by Joan Fenton in 1978; n.p. [3 reels, FT1159]. Henry Johnson, an African-American musician, performs five unidentified country blues songs with guitar accompaniment, recorded by Joan Fenton, Michael Levine, and Steve Wolf in Union County, South Carolina, 1973 [1 reel, FT1282]. Country blues, gospel, fiddle tunes, and ballads performed by Jamie Alston and Wilbur Atwater, recorded by Joan Fenton, Michael Levine, Steve Wolf, and Bruce Bastin in Orange County, North Carolina in 1973 [2 reels, FT1298-FT1299]. Dubs of field recordings of Reverend Gary Davis [“Blind Gary Davis”] originally recorded by John Cohen at Davis’ apartment in New York City in 1952. Includes songs with guitar accompaniment and also features Reverend Peoples and Annie Davis [4 reels, FT1339-FT1342]. Interviews with and songs by Charles Williams, a washboard player from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and Nat Reese, a guitarist and blues singer from Princeton, West Virginia, recorded by Joan Fenton in 1978 [FT1493]. Recordings of an African-American church service with electric gospel music, biblical readings, chanted sermon, and congregational testimonies, recorded by Joan Fenton near Princeton, West Virginia, ca. 1975 [5 reels, FT1508-FT1512]. Interview with Elvie Johnson on topics including railroading, blues, and dancing. Johnson also plays songs with Travis style guitar accompaniment, recorded by Joan Fenton in Meadow Creek, West Virginia, 1975 [FT1514].

Abstract: Interviews conducted in West Virginia in 1997 by Bryan T. McNeil for his honors essay “In My Time: The Strike of 1949 in the Lives of the Coal Miners of Southern West Virginia” (Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1998). The four interviewees are retired from the coal mining industry: Rufus Bethel is an African-American who worked as a coal miner; Roderick Pickett was a mine foreman; and Louis Vasvary and Fred Iddings are Anglo-American former coal miners.In the interviews, the participants discussed their lives, including their family history, their childhood, their experiences in the mines, and their thoughts on the United Mine Workers of America and on the mining industry in West Virginia. Special emphasis is placed on the period 1949-1950 with the men talking about the lifestyle during that time, their knowledge of negotiations during the 1949 strike, and their opinions relating to that event.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Interviews conducted by Bryan T. McNeil for his honors essay “In My Time: The Strike of 1949 in the Lives of the Coal Miners of Southern West Virginia”. The four interviewees are retired from the coal mining industry one of which is Rufus Bethel, an African-American who worked as a coal miner.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Seven tapes of stories of Demus Green, from a Gullah community in Charleston, South Carolina.

Abstract: Folklorist and librarian Brett Sutton was born in 1948 and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. He enrolled in the Curriculum of Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a Masters degree in 1976. His thesis project, “The Gospel Hymn, Shaped Notes, and the Black Tradition,” focused on African American spiritual folk singing in North Carolina. Reel-to-reel tapes with cover sheets, tape indices, and content notes for each recording that were gathered for Sutton’s thesis research. These tapes were recorded in several locations, including the World’s Greatest Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith in Durham, N.C., an African American congregational church. Recordings consist of Sunday morning services; a benefit to honor the choir’s sixth anniversary; shape-note gospel hymns; spirituals; and interviews with Gurtha Dunston, leader of the vocal choir at Gethsemane Baptist Church in Franklin County, N.C. Other tapes contain music and preaching recorded from WSCR radio broadcasts in Durham.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: These tapes were recorded in several locations, including the World’s Greatest Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith in Durham, N.C., an African American congregational church. Recordings consist of Sunday morning services; a benefit to honor the choir’s sixth anniversary; shape-note gospel hymns; spirituals; and interviews with Gurtha Dunston, leader of the vocal choir at Gethsemane Baptist Church in Franklin County, N.C. Other tapes contain music and preaching recorded from WSCR?radio broadcasts in Durham. This material was gathered for folklorist and librarian Sutton’s Masters in Folklore thesis, The Gospel Hymn, Shaped Notes and the Black Tradition, which includes a compilation tape from these recordings along with the written text.

Abstract: Allen Tullos graduated in 1976 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Masters degree in folklore; he also earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University. His research interests have centered on American popular culture, the South, cultural geography, biography, and documentary forms. Recordings on cassette and reel-to-reel tapes and documentation about many of the recordings. The cassette tape contains an interview with Cas Wallin of Madison County, N.C., known for his ballad and gospel songs, with Tullos as the chief interviewer. The material was used in a radio program for the North Carolina Broadcast Series. Reel-to-reel tapes include Wallin singing with Edison Ramsey and Evelyn Ramsey and an interview with Virgia Wallin and Dellie Norton that includes information about Cas Wallin. Other recordings document Tullos’s travels in Alabama and Virginia, where he recorded guitar and banjo tunes of Felix Blackwell, Bryon York, and Fred Beckett in Mooresville, Ala. He also interviewed Norman Smith, a potter from Chilton County, Ala., and shape-note singers at two Alabama churches, the Oak Hill Baptist Church and the Little Vine Primitive Baptist Church. He spoke with Frank Staton, an African American blues performer from Marion, Ala., who sings and plays acoustic guitar, and Frank Pickett from Mooresville, who sings self-composed songs. Also included are recordings of the 1975 Hollering Contest at Spivey’s Corner, N.C.; Morris Norton and Evelyn Ramsey, a father and daughter duo who sing traditional Appalachian folk songs; the Gospel Jubilators, a Durham, N.C., gospel group; blues guitarist Furry Lewis; and Alabama herbalist Tommie Bass. Documentation consists of cover sheets, tape indices and content notes for many of the recordings.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Interview with Frank Pickett, an African American musician in Mooresville, Limestone County, Alabama (1975), recorded by Allen Tullos. Topics covered include sharecropping and World War I; also, Mr. Pickett sings gospel songs and tells the story of how the expression “unh-huh” came about. [1 reel, FT1285] Interview with Pickett and Frank Staton of Marion, Alabama, both recorded by Tullos in 1975. Mr. Staton performs songs with guitar accompaniment. [1 reel, FT1295]

Abstract: Stuart A. Marks, professor of anthropology and environmental sciences at St. Andrews College, Laurinburg, N.C. Audio tapes and typed transcripts of oral history interviews conducted by Stuart A. Marks in the course of preparing Southern Hunting in Black and White and other volumes. The interviews, dating from the 1970s and early 1980s, are chiefly with North Carolina hunters. There are approximately eighty-five tapes. Also included are research notes and other materials, chiefly relating to hunting.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Included in the collection are interviews with African American hunters.

Abstract: Brett Sutton (1948- ) was born and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. He eared as Masters degree in 1976 from the Curriculum of Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His thesis focused on African American spiritual folk singing around Raleigh and Durham, N.C. Peter Hartman (1959- ) earned a B.S. in 1975 UNC. Hartman, also a banjo player, joined Brett Sutton to explore their mutual interest in religious folk music. In 1976, they moved to southwestern Virginia where they worked on an NEH-funded project called “Religious Folksongs in the Virginia Mountains.” From this research, they produced a book and LP recording called Primitive Baptist Hymns of the Blue Ridge (UNC Press, 1982). Sound recordings and documentation relating to Sutton and Hartman’s NEH project. The folk hymn singing tradition of conservative Baptists in southwestern Virginia in worship services and congregational meetings were recorded in rural churches, and interviews and songs were collected in congregation members’ homes. Supplemental information and transcripts include indices of texts, songs, and informants. Also available is an inventory and comparative summary of tunes collected and the NEH grant application, which includes a narrative about the purpose, significance, and scope of the project.

Repository: Southern Folklife Collection

Collection Highlights: Interviews and songs were collected in congregation members’ homes. Interviewed were Amos Hash, William Holland, Guy Phillips, Lane Carter, Monroe Simpkins, Myrtle Wood, James Denton, Thomas Claytor, the Reverend M. D. Hart, Elder Clifton, and Mrs. Benny Clifton. Supplemental records and transcripts include indices of texts, songs, and informants. Also available is an inventory and comparative summary of tunes collected and the NEH grant application, which includes a narrative about the purpose, significance, and scope of the project.

Abstract: Jane Abernethy Plyler received a B.S. in nursing from East Carolina University in 1967 and an M.S. in community health nursing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980. She has practiced nursing in a variety of situations. Eighteen cassette tapes of oral history interviews with public health nurses who practiced during the 1920s and 1930s in North Carolina. Individuals interviewed are: Rubye Bowles Bryson (1913- ) of Haywood County; Amy Louise Fisher (1901- ) of Watauga County; Edith McNeil Holmes (c. 1905- ) of Halifax County; Mary King Kneedler (1913- ) of Alamance and Pitt counties; Anne Eliza Lamb (1897- ) of Dare and Granville counties; and Elizabeth McMillan Thompson (1908- ) of Cumberland County. Also included is a copy of Plyer’s thesis, “Public Health Nursing in North Carolina: Oral Histories of Earlier Years,” which includes edited excerpts from the interviews.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: This collection contains eighteen oral history tapes of public health nurses, including African Americans, who practiced during the 1920s and 1930s in North Carolina.