New in the collection: I. Beverly Lake campaign card

Campaign flyer for I. Beverly Lake

“RALEIGH – Dr. I. Beverly Lake has not forgotten.
“On the outbox on his secretary’s desk is a phrase from the 1960 campaign: ‘The principles for which we fight are eternal!’….

“The same phrase hangs framed on his office wall…. Another wall is dominated by a blue and white flag he describes as an ‘unsurrendered battle standard’ from his grandfather’s Confederate brigade.”

— From “Dr. Lake is likely to run for governor again in 1964” by Joe Doster in the Charlotte Observer (July 8, 1962)

Lake did indeed run again, but finished third in the Democratic primary behind Dan K. Moore, the eventual governor, and L. Richardson Preyer. He was the state’s last major political candidate who espoused absolute segregation.
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Harbinger of South’s reaction on race? Not exactly

“As North Carolina Democrats go to the polls this Saturday to pick a candidate for United States Senate, the politicians here will be looking for the first clue to the political impact on the South of the Supreme Court’s ruling against public school segregation.”
— From “North Carolina Poll Will Be First Hint of South’s Reaction” in the Wall Street Journal (May 27, 1954)
That “first clue” to response to Brown vs. Board of Education turned out to be misleadingly positive: In the Democratic primary, incumbent Sen. Alton Lennon, a hardline segregationist, narrowly lost to moderate former Gov. Kerr Scott. 
In Triumph of Good Will: How Terry Sanford Beat a Champion of Segregation” (2000), John Drescher casts the race as both a rematch of Frank Porter Graham vs. Willis Smith in 1950 and a precursor to Sanford vs. I. Beverly Lake in 1960.