Nate Graham is a development assistant at the John Locke Foundation (2026). He is a graduate of North Carolina State University with a bachelor of arts in history and a minor in business entrepreneurship. He received his master’s degree in international studies at North Carolina State University, concentrating on global development. In his free time, Nate likes to play basketball, soccer, and read Cold War history.
As a lifelong North Carolinian, Nate has always been passionate about the state’s history and making sure all North Carolinians’ stories are heard.
Second-to-the-Last in Freedom (for Women)
In 1971 the North Carolina legislature ratified an amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving equal voting rights to women. Not the Equal Rights Amendment! The Nineteenth Amendment of 1920.
Richard Etheridge
Richard Etheridge was the first African American to command a lifesaving station in the United States. Lifesaving stations on the Atlantic Coast were responsible for rescuing people from shipwrecks in the late 1800s. Etheridge also fought for the Union in the Civil War and continued to fight for civil rights for the African American community...
Rosenwald Schools
North Carolina once had about 800 Rosenwald schools. These schools, made possible by Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears & Co., taught African American children in the early 1900s, when public schools in the South were segregated and poorly funded.[1] However, today these schools are little known to the public. In 1915, North Carolina’s first Rosenwald...