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: The Lewis family arrived in Raleigh, N.C., in 1923, when John D. Lewis Sr. took a job as a district manager for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company of Durham, N.C. He and his wife, Luella Alice Cox Lewis, and their two children, J.D. Lewis (John D. Lewis Jr.) (1919-2007) and Vera Lewis Embree (1921-2004), lived in southeast Raleigh and were members of First Baptist Church. J.D. Lewis was a Morehouse College graduate, one of the first African American members of the United States Marine Corps, and the first African American radio and television personality, corporate director of personnel, and director of minority affairs for WRAL of the Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC). J.D. Lewis also worked as the special markets representative for the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company; as the project director of GROW, Incorporated, a federally funded program for high school dropouts; and as the coordinator of manpower planning for the state of North Carolina. Lewis was active in many civic and community organizations as well. Vera Lewis Embree (1921-2004) graduated from the Palmer Institute for Young Women and Hampton Institute. She built a successful and celebrated career as a choreographer and professor of dance at the University of Michigan. The collection consists of papers, photographs, and audiovisual materials that chiefly relate to J.D. Lewis’s working life and the civic and community organizations he supported. Lewis’s career is documented by materials from Capitol Broadcasting Company, including editorials he wrote and produced; GROW, Incorporated; Manpower; Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company; National Association of Market Developers; and the National Business League. Lewis’s civic leadership is evident in records of the Raleigh Community Relations Committee, which worked to integrate Raleigh public schools; political campaigns; and the Team of Progress, a group interested in political leadership at the city and county levels of government. Community organizations represented in the collection include the Garner Road YMCA; Alpha Kappa Alpha Debutante Ball; the Eastside Neighborhood Task Force; the Citizens Committee on Schools; Omega Psi Phi; and Meadowbrook Country Club, which was founded in 1959 by a small group of African American community leaders. Other materials document the Method Post Office dedication in 1965; the Montford Point Marine Association; and a youth charrette, possibly on integration of Durham schools. There are also clippings and printed materials on such topics as black power, African American history, Morehouse College, and Shaw University. There are several issues of Perfect Home, a home design and decorating magazine published by John W. Winters, a real estate broker, home builder, city councilman, state senator, and civic leader. Family materials are mainly biographical and include newspaper clippings, funeral programs, school materials, awards and certificates, and photographs. There are a few family letters, including one from 1967 with a first-hand account of rioting on Twelfth Street in Detroit and a copy of a 10 January 1967 letter in which the Lewis family opposed the selection of Mark Twain’s Mississippi Melody for student performance on the grounds that it perpetuated stereotyped images of African Americans. Photographs include portraits and snapshots of four generations of the Lewis and related Cox families, documenting family life from the 1910s through the 2000s. There are non-family group portraits of Omega Psi Phi members of Durham, North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company employees on its 21st anniversary, and of unidentified groups at other civic and community events. There is one folder of J.D. Lewis photographs that depict him in various work contexts. Also included is a portrait of a young Clarence Lightner, who owned a funeral home business and later served as the first African American mayor of Raleigh. Audiovisual materials chiefly relate to J.D. Lewis’s work at Capitol Broadcasting Company/WRAL and his interest in African American community and history. Included are audiotapes of his editorials for WRAL; videotape of Harambee, a public affairs program about the concerns of the general public and especially African Americans; audiotape of musical performances, possibly for Teen-Age Frolic, a teenage dance and variety show; audiotape of Adventures in Negro History, an event sponsored by Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Raleigh; and film of unidentified wedding and seashore scenes. Also included are several published educational film strips on African American history with accompanying audio.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Of particular note are the letters J.D. Lewis received from musicians and students desiring to appear on Teen-Age Frolic, the dance/variety show Lewis hosted on WRAL (Folder 140). There are also numerous editorials Lewis did during his years as a broadcaster, on a variety of topics (Folders 21-140). Additionally, there is corresponding audio for many of these transcripts (See Series 3).

Folder 16 also contains a 1967 letter with a first-hand account of the rioting in Detroit and a copy of a 10 January 1967 letter in which the Lewis family opposed the selection of Mark Twain’s Mississippi Melody for a school-wide student performance on the grounds “it will by no means further relationships in an integrated situation, where students as a whole, do not have a sufficient background or appreciation of Negro History to comprehend this as perhaps an exaggerrated situation of a particular and past era, but rather, would perpetuate an image already deeply established as stereotyped.”

There are also numerous photographs of the Lewis and Cox Family, including J.D. and Vera Lewis’s father during his time at Morehouse College. There are also photographs of J.D. Lewis on the set of Teen-Age Frolic, introducing different bands, and at different community events (Image folders 1-10).

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: The Otey family of Meridianville, Ala., and Yazoo County, Miss., included William Madison Otey (1818-1865), merchant and cotton planter; his wife, Octavia Wyche Otey (fl. 1841-1891); and their children, Imogene Otey Fields, Mollie Otey Hampton; William Walter Otey; Lucille Otey Walker; Matt Otey, and Elliese Otey. The collection includes family and business correspondence, financial and legal papers and volumes, and personal items. Family correspondence is with members of the Wyche, Horton, Kirkland, Pruit, Landidge, and Robinson families in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and Tennessee. A few letters from Confederate soldiers in the field appear as do some letters relating to difficulties on the homefront. There is also a letter dated 27 February 1863 from a slave in Mount Shell, Tenn., to his master about building a stockade. Business papers pertain mostly to William Madison Otey’s merchant activities in Meridianville, Ala., especially with Chickasaw Indians in the 1830s, and to the Oteys’ cotton plantations in Madison County, Ala., and Yazoo County, Miss. Others concern the financial affairs of the Wyche, Horton, and Kirkland families. Included are accounts with cotton factors and merchants, estate papers, deeds, loan notes, summonses, receipts, agreements for hiring out slaves, and work contracts with freedmen. Volumes include account books, plantation daybooks, a receipt book, and a diary of Octavia Wyche Otey that covers the years 1849-1888. The diary and other papers offer detailed descriptions of women’s lives, especially in nineteenth-century Alabama.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Letters from Rebecca Wyche in 1835 and Rodah Horton in 1832, as well as other family members throughout the 1820s and 1830s,  discuss buying and selling enslaved individuals (Folder 1).

Correspondence from William Otey to his wife in the 1850s and 1860s discuss the management of their property in Yazoo County, as well as the welfare of enslaved people on the property (Folders 4-17).  There is also a letter dated 27 February 1863 from an enslaved man named Thomas, in Mount Shell, Tenn., to his master, J. M. Oaty, asking him to get a substitute for him in the building of a stockade (Folder 17).

Financial and legal papers in Series 2 contain several references to enslaved persons. William Wyche’s 1829 papers concern hiring out slaves to the firm Otey Kinkle (Folder 30). There is also an order issued in 1838 for the delivery of a enslaved woman named Eliza, who had belonged to Dr. A. A. Wyche, deceased, to Joseph Leeman. Also included is a receipt for Eliza signed by Leeman in 1838. There is also agreement dated 1849 for the hire of an enslaved woman and three children belonging to the estate of Jackston Lightfoot, which John Wyche was executor of (Folder 31).

Octavia Wyche’s antebellum diary (Folders 39-42) contains frequent mentions of managing and punishing enslaved people on her property, as well as instances of illnesses.

After the Civil War, Octavia wrote in a large volume about interacting with free people of color on her plantation, as well as copies of contracts in 1866 for Maria, Nina, and Anderson, former slaves at Green Lawn plantation. (Folder 38 also contains a contract Octavia Otey signed in 1866 with Maria, who worked as a laundress and cook). Of particular note in the diary are descriptions, dated 29 November and 6 December 1868 and 19 January and 1 February 1869, of visits to Green Lawn by the Ku Klux Klan.Also included is an entry for 22 November describing wedding preparations for the daughter of a former slave, Maria, and another for 12 January 1880, in which Octavia complains that local blacks “will not work for white people if they can help it.” (Folders 43-63).

A merchant’s account book of William Madison Otey contains an account from at least one customer, Sally Shochoty, is listed as a Negro; the spelling of her name as Shock.ho.ty at one point suggests that she may have intermarried with the Chickasaws (Folder 64).

The daybook from 1857 in Series 4.2 contains records of cotton picked by enslaved individuals on Otey’s plantation, listed by name (Folder 65). Folders 67 & 68 also contain daybooks from the Civil War era.

Folder 74 contains an 1849 clipping related to the enslaved African American musician “Blind Tom” at Camp Davis. Tom Wiggins was born in Columbus, Ga., and was an extremely talented musician who composed a number of songs and could play music by ear. He was an autistic savant and was unfortunately exploited throughout his lifetime for his musical abilities. Click here to link to a website dedicated to preserving Blind Tom’s legacy.

After the war, Octavia Otey’s correspondence received from family in the late 1860s and mid 1870s discusses relations with free people of color (Folders 18 – 23).

 

 

Abstract: The Atlantic Coast Line was based in Wilmington, N.C., and possessed rail that ran through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida. The Atlantic Coast Line later formed part of the CSX Transportation System. The collection contains records, 1900s-1950s, of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. Files are divided between President’s Files, which document railroad operations and relations with other companies, and Tax Files, which contain records of federal, state, and local taxes paid by the Atlantic Coast Line. There are also a set of financial journals and a series of files related to the reorganization of the Florida East Coast Railway Company. Addition of 2011 consists of records, 1918-1963, of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company Police Department. Reports document often extensive investigations into crimes such as trespassing and vandalism, especially by juveniles; petty larceny of railroad and personal property; vagrancy and train hopping; public drunkenness; and assault. Reports typically mention age, race, and sex of the suspects, many of whom were African American, and often personal or family information. There are also lost luggage claims, reports of injuries sustained in the rail yard, and personnel records that document relief checks, retirement traditions, job applications, and funerals.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The addition of October 2011 contains records of the Atlantic Coastline Railroad Company Police Department, and includes investigative reports and arrest records for juveniles as well as adults. Many of the records involve African American men and women, suspected of crimes as well as victims.

Abstract: George C. Stoney (1916- ), a documentary filmmaker who specialized in socially relevant films, was a mentor and teacher to generations of filmmakers and media activists worldwide and a pioneer in the movement for the creation and use of public access television to enact social change. The collection consists of papers chiefly relating to George C. Stoney’s professional work as a documentary filmmaker, teacher, and early advocate of public access television. Correspondence, 1944-1993 (bulk 1960-1990), is chiefly work-related in content, though many of Stoney’s correspondents were long-time friends and colleagues and wrote personally as well. Letters, 1944-1945, from Stoney to his future wife, Mary Bruce (1926-2004), are chiefly personal in nature and include love letters, but also, to a lesser extent, describe Stoney’s experiences as a photo intelligence officer with the 8th United States Army Air Forces in England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Correspondence between Stoney and his long-time companion Betty Puleston (d. 2009), 1967-1968, also blend description of personal and working life. Subject files comprise the bulk of the collection and include materials relating to films Stoney wrote, directed, and/or produced for the Southern Educational Film Production Service and George C. Stoney Associates. Topics include sexually transmitted disease; outreach programs of the Methodist Church; cardiovascular healthcare; education; community mental health; race relations in the South; police training; old age and retirement; midwifery; urban redevelopment in New York, N.Y., Philadelphia, Pa., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Washington, D.C.; and other social issues. Some of Stoney’s early work as a journalist and social researcher is also documented in essays, a report on race relations in Mississippi, and materials relating to his work for the Farm Security Administration. Subject files also document classes and workshops Stoney taught, especially at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and his involvement with the growth of public access and local cable television, the Challenge for Change project of the National Film Board of Canada, the Alternate Media Center, and the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers. Additionally, there are film treatments and research materials for prospective projects and printed and other material relating to the documentary film and cable television industries. Loose papers, 1980-1990s, consist of memobooks that likely relate to Stoney’s filmmaking, and clippings, reports, readings, conference advertisements, miscellaneous printed materials, handwritten notes, and writings by others that are not clearly connected to his film projects or cable and public access advocacy work. Photographs depict the documentary filmmaking process for several of Stoney’s films, public access projects and the Alternate Media Center, the work of Farm Security Administration photographers in the South in the early 1940s, and Stoney’s family life. The audio-visual materials consist of films, tapes, and sound reels from various Stoney productions, 1950s-1990s.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: Folder 675 contains some of Stoney’s work as a Southern field assistant for Gunner Myrdal’s study on race relations in the U.S., An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy.

There are a number of Subject Files that relate to Stoney’s research for Myrdal’s study as well as many of Stoney’s own films. There are several that deal with race relations and various topics:Folder 162 (Auburn, Ala./Race Relations and the Methodist Church, 1963); Folder 214 (Brewster Methodist Hospital (Jacksonville, Fla.)/Race Relations and the Methodist Church, 1963); Folder 216 (Bunche, Ralph: Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR (1973)); Folders 625-626 (Kytle, Calvin, 1947, 1960, 1973 – materials related to anti-discrimination protests and land use); Folder 666-667 (Methodist Church 1962– Chiefly concerning “The Church and the Inner City”); Folders 752-760 (Newspaper Clippings, 1960s-1980s – dealing with issues such as segregation, race relations, and Christianity)

Several of Stoney’s films also discuss the African American community and various topics. Notable documentaries include All My Babies and The Shepard of the Night Flock

All My Babies (1953) was an award winning film that focuses on An African American midwife. Folder 101-113, 671-672, 887,  contains articles, correspondence, and other materials related to the film. Folder PF-4970/1-3 contain photographs related to the film. There is a copy of the film as well (Film F-4970/203).

The Shepard of the Night Flock (1975) is a documentary discussing the life of Father Joseph Gensel and his role ministering to the Jazz community in New York. Influential musicians such as Duke Ellington appear in this film. There is a Reference folder (between Folders 972 and 973) for this film. Subseries 5.2 contains numerous clips and edits from the feature film, as well as audio tapes of the performances featured in the film.

Abstract: Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ) graduated from Amherst College in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in American civilization from Harvard University in 1975. In 1969, in the course of his research on the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala., he met African American farmer Ned Cobb (1885-1973), a former member of the Union. Rosengarten recorded a series of oral histories with Cobb and his family. These interviews were edited and re-ordered by Rosengarten for his book All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974). The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes, most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with Ned Cobb and other members of the Cobb family. The interviews describe Cobb’s life as a sharecropper, then independent farmer, in east-central Alabama, his involvement with the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison. Included are 18 tapes of interviews with Ned Cobb, 20 tapes of interviews with his family, and five tapes of interviews with unidentified persons. There is also a small number of tapes containing music and other recordings.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: The collection consists of 47 audiocassette tapes most of which contain interviews conducted by Theodore Rosengarten with African American sharecropper Ned Cobb and other members of his family. These interviews were used as the basis of Rosengarten’s book All God’s Dangers, which describes Cobb’s life as a sharecropper in east-central Alabama, his involvement with Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff’s deputies intent on seizing a neighbor’s livestock, and his life after leaving prison.

Abstract: Wesley Critz George was professor of histology and embryology and chair of the Anatomy Department, University of North Carolina Medical School, and an internationally recognized researcher on the genetics of race. Early items relate to George’s family and early career. Materials relating to George’s theories on the genetic basis of racial inferiority begin in 1944. There are also letters documenting George’s disputes with religious leaders, particularly at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, N.C., about racial mixing in churches, and George’s disapproval of the liberal tendencies of Frank Porter Graham and Howard W. Odum at UNC. After the 1954 Brown decision, George’s fight against school integration escalated, reaching its height in 1955-1957, when George was active in the Patriots of North Carolina, Inc. Many materials, 1858-1963, relate to the North Carolina Defenders of States’ Rights, Inc., which picked up the anti-integration banner after the Patriots’ demise. George’s activities in I. Beverly Lake’s unsuccessful North Carolina gubernatorial campaign are reflected in materials dated 1958- 1960. Items, 1959-1963, document George’s interest in race problems in other countries and in the issue of academic freedom on college campuses. Correspondents include Carleton S. Coon, James P. Dees, Henry E. Garrett, Luther Hodges, R. Carter Pittman, Carleton Putnam, Clayton Rand, and Archibald Roosevelt. There are also a considerable number of letters and other items George received from individuals and organizations with extremist ideas on race relations. A scattering of family letters and a small number of items relating to George’s tenure at UNC are also included. Writings by George relate to academic freedom, civil rights, genetics and race, and communism. Also included are writings by others on race and other topics, notes, clippings, biographical materials, genealogical materials relating to the Critz and Dalton families, and a few family photographs.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection Highlights: In Folder 1, there is a  1908 typed transcription of a letter from Roan Critz, former slave of Haman and Elizabeth Critz to Mrs. T. M. George about the death of her mother.

Subseries 1.2 (Correspondence from 1944 – 1954) contain 8 folders that deal mainly with George’s views on race relations, primarily arguing against racial mixing based on genetics. From the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, there are many letters from George to various church leaders, particularly Rev. Jones and Rev. David W. Yates, rector of the Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, N.C., about interracial activities, both documented and alleged, in Chapel Hill churches and elsewhere.

There are also letters George wrote to Frank Porter Graham (19 April 1947) and Howard Odum (24 May 1944) on topics of racial and education.

In 1954, there are several letters George wrote after the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, vehemently opposing school desegregation. Included are letters of support for a petition George circulated opposing school integration in Orange County, NC. Folders 10 and 11 contains these letters of support.

Throughout the rest of the correspondence in Subseries 1.3, there is also correspondence and documentation relating to groups such as Association for Preservation of the White Race, the Federation for Constitutional Government, the American Society for the Preservation of State Government and Racial Integrity, the National Association for the Advancement of White People, the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, White Men Incorporated, and many states’ rights leagues and citizens’ councils. There is also some material from the American Eugenics Society

Series 2 (Writings) and Series 3 (notes) also contain George’s articles and notes about genetics, race, biology, and his issues with academic freedom.

Abstract: David Irvin Craig was born in Orange County, N.C., in 1849. He received his early education at the old Hughes Academy at Cedar Grove, N.C.; was a student at Davidson College, 1874-1875; and, in 1878, graduated from the Theological Seminary in Columbia, S.C. He was licensed to preach in May 1878 in Greensboro, N.C., and served as pastor at the Reidsville Presbyterian Church in Reidsville, N.C., until 1925. In 1881, Craig married Isabel Gertrude Newman of Columbia, S.C., with whom he had four children. Craig was elected as a representative of Orange Presbytery in the General Assembly, served as Moderator of Synod and the Presbytery, was one of ten original regents of Barium Springs Orphanage, held the Stated Clerk position for both the Orange Presbytery and the Synod, and was a trustee of Davidson College and Union Theological Seminary. He wrote historical works on Presbyterianism. Craig died in 1925. The collection includes one account book, one day book, 14 diaries, and some loose papers. The account book, 1878-1924, includes information about marriages, baptisms, and burials performed by D.I. Craig. It also contains insurance information and lists new members of Reidsville Presbyterian Church, 1878-1897, with some gaps. The day book, 1912-1923, contains salary, expenditure, and debt information for D.I. Craig and his family. The diaries, 1884-1925, include stories of his experiences on the Craig family “plantation,” which was established in Orange County, N.C., during the 1750s. Craig also recorded a short history of the Craig and Strayhorn families in the 1884 diary and discussed family history in other diaries. Entries discuss President Grover Cleveland’s appearance at the Great Centennial Celebration of the Presbyterian General Assembly in May 1888, local and national elections, his experiences with African Americans at the polls on election days, thoughts on Prohibition, meetings with the Synod and Presbytery, his perspective on racial issues, farm life, family members, and the local gossip. Also included are entries describing the Wilmington race riots of 1898 and race riots across the country that followed first black Heavyweight Champion of the World (1908-1915) Jack Johnson’s defeat of Jim Jeffries, a white boxer and former world heavyweight champion who came out of retirement to fight Johnson on 4 July 1910. Loose papers, 1878-1925, include clippings mentioning D.I. Craig’s life and work, a program for Reidsville Presbyterian Church, and photographs of New Hope Cemetery in the 1920s. The cash book, 1914-1929, contains information on sermons preached and prayer meetings held at Reidsville Presbyterian Church as well as a list of baptisms, marriages, and funerals performed by D.I. Craig. There are also loose papers throughout the book primarily addressed to D.I. Craig’s son, Carl B. Craig. The notebooks, 1876-1878, consist of a collection of writings, sermons, and lectures given by educators at the Theological Seminary in Columbia, S.C., and they also include some written thoughts and reflections of D.I. Craig. The Addition of August 2010 consists of a single volume providing genealogical information about the Craig family written by D.I. Craig in 1899. Other information in the volume is written in another hand and includes a transcription of an obituary of a relative who died in the Civil War during the Battle of Bean’s Station (14 December 1863) and a transcription of a letter purported to have been found by a servant at a federal army camp near Camden, S.C. Dated 26 February 1865, the letter from Thomas J. Myers to his wife in Boston, Mass., recounts the looting and pillaging that occurred, likely in Camden, S.C., as General William T. Sherman’s army travelled north through the state.

Repository: Southern Historical Collection

Collection highlights: Some of the material in this collection has been digitized. Click here to access the finding aid to link to the digital material.

The diaries (1884-1925) contain entries describing Craig’s interactions with African Americans at the polls during election day, as well as his views on race relations.

The Diary from August 1897-1900 (Oversize Volume SV-5399/4) contains an entry describing the Wilmington Race Riots of 1898.

The Diary from 1908-1910 (Oversize Volume SV-5399/7) includes an entry about the 4 July 1910 fight between Jack Johnson, an African-American man, who defeated Jim Jeffries, a white man. The event provoked race riots across the country.