Civil Rights Movement
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Ella Baker ( 1903 - 1986) Encyclopedia
A North Carolina native, Ella Baker played a key role in the Civil Rights Movement and in forming the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at Shaw University.Wilbur J. Cash (1900-1941) Encyclopedia
Although historians disagree regarding W.J. Cash's conclusions about the Old and New South, they agree that all serious scholars of Southern history and culture must be familiar with Mind of the South. In it, the North Carolinian predicted the Civil Rights Movement. He died an untimely death in Mexico City in 1941.Central Orphanage of North Carolina Encyclopedia
Segregated orphanages in North Carolina necessitated the creation of an orphanage for dependent and neglected African American children. An idea for such an orphanage in Henderson, North Carolina was born, when Rev. Augustus Shepard, father of James Shepard the founder of North Carolina Central University, felt burdened when observing the squalid,living conditions of homeless African American children.Civil Rights Movement Encyclopedia
Most North Carolinians believe the Civil Rights Movement occurred strictly in the 1960s, with the start of the Sit-Ins at the Woolworth’s store in Greensboro, North Carolina. The movement, however, began much earlier, and one can argue that its roots lay in the Civil-War period.Levi Coffin (1798 – 1877) Encyclopedia
A business owner, Quaker, abolitionist, and an organizer of the Underground Railroad, Levi Coffin was born in New Garden, North Carolina. According to Coffin, “The Underground Railroad business increased as time advanced, and it was attended with heavy expenses, which I could not have borne had not my affairs been prosperous.”Concerned Parents Association Encyclopedia
The Concerned Parents Association (CPA) was an anti-busing protest group within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system. Though CPA successfully mobilized public opinion, they failed to stop the court-ordered busing. Their influence was greatly reduced after they tried—and failed—to boycott Charlotte-Mecklenburg public schools.Dorothy Counts (1942- ) Encyclopedia
Realizing desegregation was unavoidable, Charlotte School Board members ordered four black students to attend four non-integrated schools in the area. Dorothy Counts, one of the four students, was assigned to Harding High School and required to report there on September 4, 1957. While escorted by Reginald Hawkins, Counts was heckled, hissed, and spat upon while walking to the school.Henry E. Frye (1932- ) Encyclopedia
Governor James B. Hunt appointed Justice Henry Frye, in 1983, to the North Carolina Supreme Court. He thus became he became the first African American to sit on the North Carolina Supreme Court.Greensboro Sit-In Encyclopedia
On February 1, 1960, four African-American students of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat at a white-only lunch counter inside a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s store. While sit-ins had been held elsewhere in the United States, the Greensboro sit-in catalyzed a wave of nonviolent protest against private-sector segregation in the United States.
Griggs v. Duke Power Encyclopedia
Griggs v. Duke Power Company was a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971. It concerned the legality, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, of high school diplomas and intelligence test scores as prerequisites for employment. The court ruled unanimously against the intelligence testing practices of the Duke Power Company. In his opinion, Chief Justice Warren Burger argued that employers can use intelligence tests only if "they are demonstrably a reasonable measure of job performance."
Reginald Hawkins (1923-2007) Encyclopedia
Reginald Hawkins was as an boisterous and confrontational desegregation activist of the 1950s and 60s. His passionate avocation for racial equality propelled him to the national civil rights spotlight and helped to dismantle segregation in North Carolina and the South.Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Encyclopedia
The “best-known, nineteenth-century African-American woman’s autobiography” is how historian Nell Irvin Painter describes Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself (1861). The Tar Heel’s work is also noteworthy because Jacobs penned the words, unlike other slave autobiographies, including Sojourner Truth’s, which were dictated.Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) Encyclopedia
A former North Carolina slave turned abolitionist and author, Harriet Jacobs was born in bondage in Edenton. In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Jacobs describes the abuse that she endured while a slave and is the best-known autobiography written by an African American woman during the 19th century.Methodist Home for Children Encyclopedia
In 1872, the father of the orphanage movement in North Carolina, John Mills, founded the Masonic Orphanage, the state’s first orphanage. During the years of the “golden age” of the orphanage movement (1870-1920), sixteen orphanages were founded in North Carolina. Financed through charitable or religious denominations, some orphanages like Methodist Orphanage served the eastern and western regions of the state.