Creator: McLendon, Lennox Polk, 1890-1968.
Collection number: 4044
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Abstract: Papers relating to McLendon’s public service activities, especially his membership on the State Board of Higher Education, 1955- 1962, including his involvement in plans for desegregation of the University of North Carolina. Also included are materials about McLendon’s military career with U.S. troops in Mexico, 1916, and with the 113th Field Artillery, American Expeditionary Forces, 1917-1918; his law practice in Durham and Greensboro; his political activities; and the Senate investigation of Bobby Baker, including tape recordings (some transcribed) of oral diary entries that McLendon made during the course of the hearings. There also are about 600 letters from McLendon to his wife, Mary Lily Aycock McLendon. Approximately 750 items relate to the life and career of McLendon’s father-in-law, Charles Brantley Aycock (1859-1912), governor of North Carolina, 1901-1905.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: The papers contain information pertaining to black troops in World War I. Of particular note are two letters McLendon wrote to his wife on 11 May 1918 and 26 May 1918, where describes that attitudes of African American soldiers in the military at that time (Folder 89 and 90).
Correspondence from the 1950s and 1960s discusses the desegregation of higher education in North Carolina.