Creator: Sanford, Terry, 1917-1998.
Collection number: 3531
View finding aid.
Abstract: Terry Sanford of Scotland, Cumberland, Wake, and Durham counties, N.C., was a politician, educator, administrator, lawyer, and soldier. He served as state senator, 1953-1954; governor of North Carolina, 1961-1965; president of Duke University, 1969-1985; and U.S. senator, 1986-1992. The collection includes campaign files and other items relating to Terry Sanford’s career. Pre-1960 material includes items related to Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat campaign for U.S. President; to Sanford’s successful 1949 campaign for president of the Young Democrats Clubs of North Carolina; to Frank Porter Graham’s 1950 senatorial campaign; and to North Carolina’s Pearsall Plan for public school desegregation. 1959-1960 gubernatorial campaign items include correspondence between Sanford’s staff and county liaisons, correspondence with key advisors, clippings from state and regional newspapers, letters responding to Sanford’s support of John F. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention, and films and audio tapes of Sanford gubernatorial campaign advertisements. Topics include agriculture, industry, public schools, welfare, race relations, women in politics, and religion and politics. Items, 1961-1965, document Sanford’s political activities as North Carolina governor. Topics include North Carolina’s 1963 “Gag Law,” the Good Neighbor Council, and the North Carolina Fund. Items, 1965-1984, relate to Sanford’s proposed 1968 U.S. senatorial campaign against Sen. Sam Ervin; the 1968 Citizens for Humphrey-Muskie Committee; and Sanford’s 1972 and 1976 presidential campaigns. Materials related to Sanford’s unsuccessful 1992 U.S. senatorial campaign include North Carolina voters’ responses to a Sanford questionnaire, detailed reports on Sanford’s opponent Lauch Faircloth, folders on women’s and children’s issues, and photographs and several video and audio tapes related to the campaign. 1992 campaign topics include welfare, industry, education, crime, and taxes. Correspondents represented in the collection include John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton, Bert Bennett, Hugh Cannon, Henry H. Wilson Jr., Frank Porter Graham, Clyde Hoey, William Friday, Sam Rayburn, W. Kerr Scott, Luther Hodges, Dan K. Moore, Hubert H. Humphrey, I. Beverly Lake, Sr., Malcolm Seawell, Sam Ervin, Lauch Faircloth, John Larkins, John Gavin, Robert F. Kennedy, and Adlai Stevenson. The Addition of 2011 contains notes, short letters, and greeting cards, 1960-1985, addressed to Margaret Rose Sanford; some letters discuss Terry Sanford’s 1960 gubernatorial campaign and victory, support for Sanford’s 1961 tax plan, and the end of Sanford’s gubernatorial career. There are also a few letters, 1959-1964, chiefly thank-yous, to Terry Sanford; letters, 1960-1967, to his mother about Sanford’s achievements; and other items.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights:Folders 20a -20c in Series 1.2 (Loose Papers), and Folder 723 in Series 2.5 (Clippings) contain materials related to North Carolina’s Pearsall Plan for public school desegregation.
Folders 336-340 in Series 2.3 (Speeches, etc), entitled “Race Relations” contain information related to speeches, writings, and background materials Sanford used during the gubernatorial race of 1960. Materials from these folders have been digitized and are available online. Click here to link to the finding aid for this collection and to access the digital content.
Several folders in Series 2.5 (Clippings) contain materials related to race relations and issues related to the African American community such as Folder 434 (“Civil Rights Caucus – North Carolina Delegates”); Folder 435 (“Civil Rights Commission”); Folder 570 (“Hate Leaflets”); Folder 601 (“NAACP: Job Drive”); Folder 703 (“African American Vote”); Folder 744 (“Race Issues”); Folders 780 (“School segregation”); Folder 799-800 (“Segregation”)
Series 4.3 contains letters, memos, clippings, and other materials from Sanford’s presidential campaigns in 1972 and 1976. Included in these items are materials that reflect Sanford’s position on issues such as race relations in these campaigns.
Film F-3531/15 in Series 6.1 (Films) contains a 1960 campaign film of Sanford talking to a “working man” about race and education. Film F-3531/17 contains three campaign advertisements from the same year, in one of which Sanford talks to a farmer about agriculture and race. Film F-3531/33 contains footage of Sanford arguing that continued civil rights protests will not serve the movement’s interests because protestors had made their point that “the Negro is discontented”.
Audiotape T-3531/114 in Series 7 is a CBS-TV interview on race relations, dated 24 May 1963.
Subseries 3.4 contains correspondence and other related materials about the North Carolina Fund, an independent non-profit organization to fight poverty in North Carolina primarily in the 1960’s.
Subseries 3.2.1 contains a folder w/ materials related to Gov. Sanford’s appointment to the Colored Orphanage Board (Folder 1039).
Several folders in Subseries 3.2.1 also contain folders and documentation on may historically black colleges and universities, such as North Carolina Central University (then known as North Carolina College at Durham), North Carolina A & T College, and Winston-Salem State [See folders 1057; 1059; 1063-64; 1065; 1071]
Materials from Sanford’s years as governor include documentation on the Colored Orphanage Board, state-supported historically black colleges, and civil rights newspaper clippings.