Commentary

Champions of Freedom: Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Jesse Helms, Heroes in the War against Communism

Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn and US Senator Jesse Helms spent more than one-half of their lives without an awareness of each other’s existence. They spoke different languages. They met only a few times, yet they forged a relationship that allowed them to help shape events that brought down one of the world’s most powerful governments. By examining the commonalities of these two men, their relationship, and their shared values, we can gain an understanding of their passion and the importance of their message for all of us today.

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Sacred Heart Cathedral

Sacred Heart Cathedral is the Mother Church for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, making it the spiritual center for Catholics in eastern North Carolina. It is the smallest cathedral in the continental United States. Sacred Heart’s parochial school was desegregated in 1953, a year before the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

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Moore, Aaron McDuffie

Born on September 6, 1863 to free yeoman farmer parents, Aaron McDuffie Moore used educational opportunities to improve his social condition and to better his community.

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Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World was “the most powerful piece of [anti-slavery] propaganda written by a black.”   It was published in three installments in 1829.  In it, Wilmington native David Walker encouraged slaves to revolt against their masters.  In 1830, North Carolina’s legislature banned the pamphlet from being distributed within the state.

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

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.

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Evolution Debate in North Carolina in the 1920s

In North Carolina, the debate teaching evolution became a contentious issue between religious leaders and educators. William Louis Poteat, president of Wake Forest University drew criticism from conservative critics from North Carolina and around the United States when he openly accepted the theory of evolution.

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Stamp Act

Enacted in 1765, the Stamp Act increased British control over the American colonial economy and further angered American colonists by confirming that salutary neglect had ended.