This Month in NC: Creation of SNCC, April 1960

Be sure to read the latest installment of This Month in North Carolina:

Harry McKown recounts the civil rights movement meetings held at Shaw University in Raleigh during April 1960.  These meetings resulted in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, pronounced “snick.”

Goodbye, guppies — here comes fluoridation!

On this day in 1949: Mayor Herbert Baxter throws the switch on a machine that ostensibly begins pumping fluoride into Charlotte’s water supply. In reality, the media event is a ruse designed to flush out anti-fluoridation hysteria. Indeed, complaints quickly begin pouring in about hair falling out and pet fish dying.

A month later the city will reveal the truth, and Charlotte really does become the first city in the South and the 14th in the nation to fluoridate.