Dr. Reginald A. Hawkins: North Carolina’s first African American gubernatorial candidatecan

“The establishment has discounted the poor, the black, the low-income and liberal whites. It had been divide and conquer. This is the dream I have for North Carolina: to bring us together, black and white…Too long have black people sought a place at the bargaining table, only to receive the crumbs after dinner is over.”

These were the words of Dr. Reginald Armistice Hawkins, given in a speech in 1968 as part of his campaign to become North Carolina’s governor.  Dr. Hawkins, a dentist and ordained Presbyterian minister from Charlotte, made history with his 1968 gubernatorial bid as he was the first African American in the history of the state to make a run for the office.

Today we feature this photograph, from the SHC’s Allard Lowenstein Papers (#4340), of Dr. Reginald Hawkins (at right) with Dr. Ralph David Abernethy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  This photograph is included in our current exhibit, “We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present,” on view until February 5, 2010.

Dr. Ralph David Abernethy (left) and Dr. Reginald Hawkins, from Allard Lowenstein Papers, #4340
Dr. Ralph David Abernethy (left) and Dr. Reginald A. Hawkins at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., 27 April 1968. Photograph from Allard Lowenstein Papers, SHC #4340.

Thirty Years Later: Remembering the Greensboro Massacre

Thirty years ago today, on November 3, 1979, the Workers Viewpoint Organization (later renamed the Communist Workers Party) sponsored an anti-Klan march and conference in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Members of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party attacked the demonstrators, killing five and injuring eleven Communist Workers Party members.

Greensboro_Civil_Rights_Fund_4630-002.jpg
Flyer from the Records of the Greensboro Civil Rights Fund, SHC #4630.

Family and friends of the deceased organized the Greensboro Civil Rights Fund, raising some $700,000 to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party, as well as local and federal law enforcement agencies–whose undercover agents and paid informants in the Klan and Nazi Party allegedly participated in planning the attacks.

In 2004, around the time of the 25th anniversary of the Massacre, a Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission was impaneled by the Greensboro community in order to “examine ‘the context, causes, sequence and consequence of the events of November 3, 1979’ for the purpose of healing transformation for the community” (from the Commission’s mandate).  Over the course of nearly two years the commission sponsored public hearings, meetings, scholarly panels, interfaith religious services, and other community gatherings.  Their activities culminated in a lengthy report giving a set of conclusions and recommendations which they hoped would continue the process of reconciliation and map the way forward.  To quote their report,

We believe the truth and reconciliation process in Greensboro opened up the debate around Nov. 3, 1979, in a positive way and has successfully engaged a broad spectrum of the community in an effort that offers hope for reconciliation. As a Commission that looks a bit like Greensboro in microcosm, we found that this process –and our own struggle to hear and understand each other- had a profound impact on our perceptions of the issues we explored. Our individual and collective commitment to the truth helped us persevere. And the human stories and emotions we encountered along the way moved us to do our best to leave behind a legacy we hope will serve Greensboro for years to come. We cannot say what the future will hold for this community or what the long-term impact of this process will look like, but we hope that this process also serves as a learning tool for others in this country who, like Greensboro, are burdened by a legacy of hurt and inspired by the possibility of honestly coming to terms with their own history.

So today we honor the memories of those lost to the violence of the Greensboro Massacre, thirty years ago today.  We also honor the courage of the Greensboro community which sought to heal itself through the truth and reconciliation process.

And finally, we especially want to honor the life and work of Dr. John K. “Yonni” Chapman, a long-time and loyal supporter of the Southern Historical Collection.  On October 22, 2009, following a lengthy battle with a rare blood cancer, Yonni Chapman passed away at his home in Chapel Hill. Yonni Chapman was one of the anti-Klan demonstrators who survived the attack of November 3, 1979.  Later, he was involved in the truth and reconciliation process (his statement before the Commission is available here) and continued racial justice organizing in North Carolina for nearly three decades.

New SHC Collection: George C. Stoney Papers

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.

Click here to view the finding aid for this collection.

Creator of the Month…John Harden

John William Harden (1903-1985) of Greensboro, N.C., was a journalist, newspaper editor, author, advisor to North Carolina governors and textile executives, and founder of the state’s first full-service public relations company. The collection contains materials, 1914-1986, including business records, correspondence, writings, speeches and speech materials, administrative records, newspaper clippings, diaries, scrapbooks, photograph albums, family papers, sound recordings, and videocassettes relating to John Harden.

Correspondence and other papers includes items relating to each of John Harden’s published books. Harden published The Devil’s Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories in 1949 and Tar Heel Ghosts in 1954. These books present stories gathered by Harden that deal with North Carolina locales, myths, and stories. Devil’s Tramping Ground grew out of a weekly radio program, entitled Tales of Tarheelia, presented over eighteen months on station WPTF in Raleigh in 1946-1947. Both books were illustrated by Lindsey McAlister, an acquaintance of Harden’s daughter Glenn Abbott, and were published by the University of North Carolina Press.

Here are some interesting items and images that can be found within the writings series that highlight Harden’s interest in the strange and unknown. Since Halloween is fast approaching, we hope that you will find items in this collection fascinating and ghoulish.

New SHC Collection: The Margaret Nygard Papers, 1965-2004

Margaret Nygard (1925-1995) was born in Nasik, India, where her father was a British civil servant. After leaving India, she lived in England and Canada. She married English professor Holger Nygard in 1944, received her masters and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and moved to Durham, N.C., where she taught English at Durham Technical Community College and later became a social worker. In 1965, she and others formed the Eno Historical Society, which became the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley in 1966 (often called the Eno River Association). In the early 1970s, the Association began acquiring land along the Eno River that became the Eno River State Park in 1973. While remaining active in the Association, Nygard was also involved in other local and state-wide groups that supported efforts to protect sensitive environmental areas.

The papers chiefly relate to Margaret Nygard’s involvement in founding and running the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley. Included are appraisal reports and other materials related to the acquisition of land along the Eno River for the Eno River State Park, as well as materials regarding opposition to those efforts. There are also meeting minutes, financial materials, and materials relating to the annual Festival for the Eno and other outreach events of the Association. Also included is documentation of Nygard’s involvement with the North Carolina Division of State Parks and North Carolina environmental organizations. Many of these items relate to Nygard’s opposition to development projects, including the proposed expansion of Raleigh-Durham Airport. Also included are some Nygard and related family materials; articles written in response to Nygard’s death; and photographs of Nygard and others, Nygard’s funeral, the Festival for the Eno, and the Eno River.

[You may click here to view to finding aid for this new collection.]

The Delta Ministry, an ambitious self-help initiative for Mississippi

“Through the long, hot summer and the long cold winter, Delta Ministry looks ahead: to a total ministry, to growing self-respect and self-determination among delta Negroes, to a bold new start for some.”  So begins the text of a wonderful brochure (found in the SHC’s Delta Health Center Records) that tells the story of the Delta Ministry.

The Delta Ministry was a project begun in 1964 by the New York-based National Council of Churches to provide support to African Americans in the Mississippi Delta region. The project not only sought to bring economic aid to black Mississippians but also encouraged voter registration and greater political involvement.  According to Mark Newman’s 2004 book, Divine Agitators: The Delta Ministry and Civil Rights in Mississippi, the Delta Ministry began with a 10-year mandate but ended up stretching its support for the citizens of the Delta into the 1980s.  This, according to Newman, filled the vacuum created as other civil rights organizations, such as SNCC and CORE, discontinued similar programs of support for poor blacks in the Mississippi Delta.

The group has a fascinating story, much more deftly told by Newman’s extensively-researched book than I could do in this space.  The organization’s history deserves greater attention, it deserves even more ink from historians writing on the legacy of the American Civil Rights Movement.  As an intro, we hope you’ll read and enjoy this Delta Ministry brochure.   Click on each thumbnail to see a larger version of the image.  Finally, if you’re interested in digging deeper, there are other great materials in Box 59 of the SHC’s Delta Health Center Records.

New SHC collection: Harry Stanley mess book and other papers, 1863-1865.

Harry Stanley was born Tufton K. Stanley on 2 September 1832 in Boston, Mass. He first enlisted in the United States Navy in 1855 and then reenlisted on 21 September 1861. He was made master at arms, the chief disciplinary officer on the USS Ethan Allen, on 24 August 1863, and left the ship on 14 June 1865 as a yeoman. He died on 15 February 1890 in Boston, Mass.

The collection contains the mess book of Harry Stanley, the master at arms for the USS Ethan Allen. The beginning of the book lists the sailors on the ship, divided into the eight different messes with which they ate. The second part of the book is a list of disciplinary actions taken against crew members of the ship, listed by date. Typical entries contain the name of the crew member who was punished, the event for which they were punished, the dates on which they were punished and released, and by whom they were released. There are also drawings of the various semaphore flags and their meanings, a penciled copy of the list of members of the eight different messes, and a list of all money received and spent by Stanley on behalf of the USS Ethan Allen. There are also photocopies of Harry Stanley’s pension; his discharge; and a few documents relating to the widow’s pension of his wife, Margaret Stanley.

[You may click here to view the finding aid for this new collection.]


The lives of prisoners of war at Johnson’s Island

The SHC contains a number of collections that document the lives of Confederate prisoners at Johnson’s Island Prison near Sandusky, Ohio. [Click here to see a listing of catalog records of SHC material on the subject.]

Drawing of Johnson’s Island Prison, 7 October 1863, Sandusky Bay near Sandusky, Ohio
Drawing of Johnson’s Island Prison, 7 October 1863 (from Joseph Mason Kern Papers, SHC #2526-z)

The image above comes from the SHC’s Joseph Mason Kern Papers (SHC collection #2526-z).  Kern (b. 1842), of Romney, Va., served in the C.S.A. 13th Virginia Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, and was imprisoned for several months at Johnson’s Island. Kern compiled a scrapbook that documents his Civil War experiences and his time at Johnson’s Island, and includes this colored map of the prison.

A second example:  The SHC preserves two diaries of Robert Bingham (1838-1927) kept, 1863-1864, while he was a prisoner at Norfolk, Va., Fort Delaware, Johnson’s Island, Ohio, and Point Lookout, Md.  The diary describes prison life, including quarters, gambling, work, escape plots, sermons, food, illness, and hospitals at various prison camps.  Here’s his diary entry from August 26, 1863 (while imprisoned at Johnson’s Island):

Two months.  Yes it is a long time to be in prison. I have not heard a word from my wife in two months. It is very long.  How my heart has yearned for her in these two months! & for my child.  God bless them – & keep them.  The Lord make his face to shine upon them & be gracious to them.  The Lord lift up his countenance upon them & grant them peace.  Two months in prison.  I have suffered – some from sickness, much from anxiety about home – much from looking thro[ugh] bars & across bayonets – but I have much to be thankful for.  I have had money – not in abundance, but enough.  I have had books – & several very kind letters & have been very much more comfortable than I expected to be.  I wrote to Dell to day assuring her of this & I do hope the letter may get thro[ugh].  Other have got letters thro[ugh] both ways.

Announcing the 2009 Southern Studies Visiting Scholars Grant Recipients

The Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2009 Southern Studies Visiting Scholars Grants. The Southern Historical Collection offers these awards to individuals who plan to use the collections for a major research project, including dissertations, theses, articles, and monographs.

The 2009 Southern Studies Visiting Scholars Grant recipients are:

2009 Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar Grants

  • Drew Addison Swanson, PhD candidate at the University of Georgia
    “Land of the Bright Leaf: Yellow Tobacco, Environment, and Culture along the Border of Virginia and North Carolina”

2009 Guion Griffis Johnson Visiting Scholar Grant

  • Katherine Armstrong, PhD candidate at Emory University
    “Children of Sorrow: Mothers, Child Mortality, and Grief in the Antebellum South”
  • Aaron Carico, PhD candidate at Yale University
    “Plantation State: Finance, Aesthetics, and the Political Reconstruction of America”

2009 J. Carlyle Sitterson Visiting Scholar Grant

  • Jennifer E. Tomas, PhD candidate at SUNY Binghamton
    “The Women’s History Movement in the United States: Building U.S. Women’s History, 1945-1995”

2009 John Eugene and Barbara Hilton Cay Visiting Scholar Grant

  • Christopher R. Lawton, PhD candidate at the University of Georgia
    “Re-Envisioning the South: William and T. Addison Richards, Georgia Illustrated, and the Cultural Politics of Antebellum Sectionalism”

Creator of the Month: Walker Percy

Walker Percy as a student at UNC (from 1937 Yackety Yack - UNCs student yearbook)
Walker Percy as a student at UNC (from 1937 "Yackety Yack" - UNC's student yearbook)

In conjunction with the current exhibit “Four from between the Wars,” the creator of the month for September is Walker Percy. A UNC alum and celebrated Southern author, Percy’s works include The Moviegoer, which won the 1962 National Book Award for fiction, The Last Gentleman (1966), Love in the Ruins (1971), Lancelot (1977), The Second Coming (1980), and The Thanatos Syndrome (1987). He published two works of non-fiction, The Message in the Bottle (1975) and Lost in the Cosmos (1983).

Walker Percy’s papers are held by the Southern Historical Collection in Wilson Library. The collection consists of material produced by Walker Percy while working on his six published novels, two published book-length works of non-fiction, various essays and reviews, and three unpublished long works–two fiction (one of which is not extant) and one non-fiction. A description of the materials can be found in the finding aid, here on the SHC website. The finding aid has been recently revised to make the materials more accessible. Additional materials relating to Walker Percy, including his working library, can be found in the Rare Book Collection