by Charly Mann 

This week a memorial commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King will open in Washington, DC on the 48th anniversary of his inspiring "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington on August 28th, 1963. I, along with about 50 other intrepid Chapel Hillians, were there on that day to be participants and eyewitnesses to history.

This is part of the Chapel Hill, North Carolina contingent to the 1963 March on Washington soon after arriving in the nation's capitol on August 28th, 1963

The purpose of the March on Washington was to gather about 100,000 people from every state in the nation to march in support of legislation that would end segregation in all public schools, as well as prohibit racial discrimination in hiring in both the public and private sector. Another objective was to raise the minimum wage to $2.00 an hour. (By the way, six years later I had a "good job" where my salary was $1.60 an hour.)

This is me, Charly Mann, in the center carrying the sign, along with other people from Chapel Hill marching from the Washington Mounument to Lincoln Memorial at the 1963 March on Washington. My chaperon on the trip was Dick Lamanna, a sociology graduate student, who was active in the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill from 1961-1963. He left Chapel Hill in 1964 and had a long career as a professor at Notre Dame. All of the photographs in this article, except the last four, were taken by him.

I was 13 years old at this time, and had been active in the civil rights movement since 1960. I was especially galvanized for this demonstration because I had recently learned that in the 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery in the South, not one piece of civil rights legislation had been enacted to guarantee the same rights for blacks as for whites.

This is the view that the group from Chapel Hill had of the speaker's podium at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington. We were lucky to be so close.  

We boarded what we called our "freedom bus" to Washington in darkness at about 5:00 AM in front of a black Baptist church on the west side of Chapel Hill. Throughout the week the press had carried reports of threats by the Ku Klux Klan and other racist organizations to those who tried to go to Washington that day, but we were not deterred. In 1963 only short sections of I-85 and I-95 were completed between Chapel Hill and Washington, so much of our journey was on secondary roads. I remember as the sun was coming up near where we entered Virginia there was a group of several dozen white men at an intersection with racist signs shouting at us.

This is a photo of the Chapel Hill group sitting in the shade next to the Lincoln Memorial shortly before the speeches began.

By the time we were 20 miles outside of Washington we had become part of a seemingly endless caravan of buses headed to the march. We arrived in Washington at about 10:00 AM and headed toward the Washington Monument where the march was to begin. The march had very little support among American whites, and even President Kennedy urged the organizers to cancel it. The Washington Daily News paper reported that most people felt we were like "the Vandals coming to sack Rome". Even Lawrence Spivak of NBC's respected Meet the Press program said he believed "it would be impossible to bring more than 100,000 militant Negroes into Washington without incidents and possibly rioting." The American government was so afraid of blacks coming to Washington to demand equal rights that they not only ordered all liquor stores closed in the city (thereby preventing angry blacks from getting drunk and violent), but also told federal employees that they did not have to come to work that day. This was especially annoying to me since almost all the violence I had seen during my time in the civil rights movement was white people lynching, beating up, bombing, and shooting blacks who were protesting racial injustice by non-violent means. Furthermore, none of the organizing groups or leaders of the March on Washington had ever advocated violence. (The more militant black Nation of Islam led by Malcolm X did not support, nor were they part of, the March).

A beautiful shot of the crowd along the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial. In the front sitting down are members of the Chapel Hill group including me, from behind, in the blue hat.

The march began at 11:30,  and we marched together black and white, almost 300,000 strong, down both Constitution and Independence Avenues to the Lincoln Memorial. 75% of the marchers were black, and the vast majority of them came from the North, as fears of violence from southern racists had frightened many people in the South from coming. Nevertheless, the march was the biggest demonstration up to that time in Washington's history, and attracted three times more participants than the organizers had hoped for.

This is me, Charly Mann, in front of the Chapel Hill "Freedom Bus", shortly after arriving in Washington on August 28th, 1963

Our walk to the Lincoln Memorial was only a mile long, and the Chapel Hill group was in the first third of the march, so we were close enough to see the speakers and performers well. While the remainder of the marchers found places to sit and stand along the Reflecting Pool in front of the Memorial, we were entertained by performers including Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, and Mahalia Jackson, as well as a reading from the great black writer James Baldwin by actor Charlton Heston. (Today many think of Heston as a conservative because of his leadership of the NRA, but in the 1950's and 60's he was one of the few Hollywood stars who regularly spoke out for equality and civil rights legislation.)

Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial after delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech on August 28th, 1963

The speeches began at about 2:00 PM and culminated around 5:00 with Martin Luther King's eloquent “I Have a Dream" speech that beautifully advocated an America of racial harmony and justice. I had been fortunate to meet King in 1960, and remember thinking as I heard him speak what a wise old man he was. Today I realize that when I first met him he was 31, and on this momentous occasion only 34.

This is my program of the events at Lincoln Memorial during The March on Washington on August 28th, 1963.

After the speeches concluded we walked back to our bus and returned to Chapel Hill at about 10:30 PM. Martin Luther King and several of the other civil rights leaders who spoke that afternoon went to the White House after the event to lobby President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson to strongly support the civil rights legislation they were advocating. Within two years those goals were met with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

After returning from the March on Washington I wore the above pin for several weeks which angered many of my friends and other people I knew in Chapel Hill. Most of my friends' parents were UNC professors, merchants, and professionals. I got many threatening notes, was beaten up once, and several times groups of my former friends threw rocks at me. Primarily because of this I never attended Chapel Hill schools afterward.

When I got back to Chapel Hill I proudly wore my March on Washington button for the next several weeks. Though a sizable minority of whites in Chapel Hill supported eventual integration, most did not favor protests or immediate desegregation. Most of the friends I had were furious with my involvement in the civil rights movement, and even though I spent the majority of the next 25 years of my life in Chapel Hill, none of them ever spoke to me again. There was also a large group of Chapel Hillians and UNC students who supported segregation, and had bumper stickers of the confederate flag on their rear car bumpers. I was called many unpleasant things by these people, and several times groups of my peers threw rocks at me. I also began receiving racist phone calls and anonymous notes; all somewhat scary to a 13 year old. I am sure though that this was nothing in comparison to what local black youths and adults were experiencing. I remember the two most common epithets hurled against me were "nigger-lover" and "race-mixer".

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by Charly Mann

Chapel Hill has always been hot in the summer, and not long ago that heat had to be endured without air conditioning in homes, cars, schools and most businesses. For those of you too young to remember you might wonder how we endured without melting away. The truth is those days were comfortable primarily because we beat the heat by being outdoors a lot more than today. Much of that time was spent sitting on a front porch where we would socialize with neighbors, or just talk to people who were passing by in front of our homes.

This is the Seaton Barbee House which until 1924 was where the University Methodist Church in the center of downtown Franklin street is now located. Mr. Barbee owned a drug store which was next door. Seaton and his wife spent many summer evenings on their front porch engaged in conversation with their Chapel Hil friends. He was known to greet everyone who passed by; inviting many to join him on the porch. (I believe their daughter married James Sutton - founder and original owner of Sutton's Drug Store).

A typical summer afternoon and evening in Chapel Hill would involve visits from four to six neighbors, most of whom just dropped by unannounced. They would take a seat on your porch or in your living room and stay for two to three hours as other people would come and go. You quickly learned that the better one could tell a story the more popular you were. Early on I enjoyed carefully observing the conversations going on around me, and would always find at least one that I thought was interesting. After more than five years of doing this I had recorded enough interesting events and stories in my brain that I could by the time I was thirteen hold my own in conversation with most adults.

This is the front porch of my mother's cousin Ethel Holbrooke's house which was located on Rosemary Street across from NCNB plaza until 1962. I spent many wonderful afternoons and evenings on this porch.

Whether you were inside or outside everyone would have an iced tea or lemonade beside them. Looking back at those days I actually think that engaging conversation is the best way one can escape from unpleasant weather. Today our conversation is usually limited to a couple of trite phrases like "How are you doing?" and talking about the weather or what we recently saw on television.

In the late 1950's several Chapel Hill families I knew converted their garage into family rooms. Most had overhead ceiling fans. Often these rooms were used by adults to share conversation and alcoholic beverages with their friends during the summer months. 

A staple item on most Chapel Hill porches in those days were hand-held fans, most of which had ads for local car dealers, appliance stores, or funeral homes on them.

Just as often as we had people dropping in on us, my parents would take me and my sisters over to visit one of our neighbors or a friend. Many houses downtown had large hammocks on their front porches which I delighted in relaxing in. Several of the older houses had back porches that were screened in and were referred to as "sleeping-porches". As late as 1960 I knew a couple who would sleep out on theirs on especially hot nights. They swore the evening breezes afforded them an incredibly comfortable slumber.

The majority of the houses on Franklin and Rosemary streets in the 1950s had high ceilings and lots of windows which were strategically placed to ensure cross ventilation, which usually meant catching a nice breeze wherever you were in the house.

At least once a week in the summer I would go outside and crank out homemade peach, strawberry, or vanilla ice cream. It was hard work for a young boy, but the ice cream was incredible and there was one girl in our neighborhood that I had a crush on who seemed to always stop by soon after I made ice-cream.

 
Before refrigerators Chapel Hill families used iceboxes to keep their food cool. The ones I recall were made out of tin and a large block of ice was placed on the top shelf. During the summer months the ice would have to be replaced daily. The top picture above is of a Chapel Hill ice-wagon from about 1900, and the one below it is from around 1939. I vividly remember seeing a horse-drawn ice wagon delivering ice in a neighborhood in west Chapel Hill not far from the Carrboro town line in the mid-1950s. The Chapel Hill ice factory was located on West Franklin street about two blocks from where Crook's Corner is today.

Another great way Chapel Hillians used to avoid the heat was spending time in the water, which in the 1930s and 40s meant Sparrow's Pool, which was located a few miles out of town on the Old Greensboro Highway, and when I was growing up in the 1950s Hogan's Lake.

This is Sparrow's Pool in the mid-1940s. It was where many Chapel Hillians spent their summer days in the 1930s and 40s.

The Carolina Theater was first place to be air-conditioned in Chapel Hill, which attracted many of its customers in the summer well into the 1960s because it was truly the coolest place in town.

The small guy here is me, Charly Mann, with my father inside our Chapel Hill house in July of 1952 in very comfortable attire.

Most cars did not have air conditioning until the early 1970s. In fact I remember as late as 1969 the only car General Motors made that had air conditioning as standard equipment was the Cadillac. As late as 1976 air conditioning was an expensive option on many cars. So to stay cool in summer you always had your windows down and tried to drive as fast as you could while still being within the speed limit to ensure the maximum cooling effect. In 1958 my mother bought a top of the line Oldsmobile which we drove to California over the summer. It got so hot in Texas, even with the windows down, that we bought a bulky contraption called a window air conditioner that we placed outside the right passenger window. It was little more than a ventilated metal box which you had to fill with water every couple of hours. The water was aborbed into a large sponge pad. If the car was moving at a decent clip the outside air would vent from the outside and pass through the water soaked sponge to produce a cooling effect in the car, but believe me it was no substitute for today's real air conditioning in cars.

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 by Charly Mann

1972 marked the year Chapel Hill changed from being a small town to a small city. There were now officially half the number of parking spaces needed in the downtown and campus area (7,000) with 14,000 people looking to park their cars between 9 AM and 5 PM. As a result a referendum (which UNC students over the age of 18 could vote on) was passed to establish a bus system for the community.

This is one of my favorite photos of life in Chapel Hill. It is from 1972 and captures many of the best attributes of the town. The picture is of a 17-year old Merle Slifkin and a young friend. Merle is now a doctor in Israel and has three children. From 1969 to 1975 the mayor of Chapel Hill was Howard Lee, the first black mayor of a predominately white community in the South. His greatest accomplishment was establishing the Chapel Hill bus system.

Many Chapel Hillians like myself who could not find a parking place resorted to riding bicycles to get around. On an average day 2,000 townspeople and students were using bikes. That year there was even a bike day in which 500 bicyclists led by Mayor Howard Lee and Alderman Alice Welsh paraded around downtown. That same year the town established bike paths on nine roads in town. (Until then it had been illegal to ride a bike on many Chapel Hill streets including Franklin, Rosemary, and Columbia Street.) There were several stores doing a boomimg business in bicycle sales.The top dealer was the Western Auto in Carrboro. All these stores bought used bikes and usually were able to sell one for twice what they paid for it in less than a day. At the same time a local crime wave was causing serious concerns for bike owners. Chains, spokes, and brakes were often vandalized, and locks were often sawed off and bikes stolen which resulted in an active market for "hot" bikes in town.

This is me, Charly Mann, in 1972 with my bicycle in front of the Record and Tape Center which I managed in those days. From the age of 8 until I was 22, I got almost everywhere in town on a bike. I did not bother to get a driver's license until I was 22. The girl next to me is Debbie Taylor, Chapel Hill's original flower child.

Sadly 1972 also marked the year that that it was no longer safe being a woman in Chapel Hill. Susan Case the chairman of the Association of Women Students said women were being indiscriminately attacked by men all over the town. The attacks ranged from women being shoved and sexually harassed to being knocked down and raped. UNC Assistant Dean of Women, Marianne Hitchcock, reported that there were several cases of women being chased by men on campus particularly between the library and South Campus. There were also several cases of women who lived downtown finding one or more men trying to get into their apartments. A 17 year old Chapel Hill High School female student who worked for me at my record store on Franklin Street was jumped by a man near Fowler’s Food Store on her way to work one evening about 6 PM, and only escaped her attacker by screaming and then running across the street into the Bus Station. Many women continued to walk alone in Chapel Hill, but were now far more vigilant and no longer felt safe.

The Pizza Inn was a very popular pizza restaurant in 1972 and was located on West Frranklin street between Belk's and Fowler's grocery store.

1972 was also an election year which had the town sharply divided. In the Presidential race Richard Nixon was running for re-election against George McGovern, and for the North Carolina United States Senate Democratic Representative Nick Galifianakis was up against Republican conservative television commentator Jesse Helms. Though Chapel Hill was by then considered the bastion for liberal thinking in the state I recall the people I knew in Chapel Hill almost evenly split in their support in both races. Ultimately Nixon crushed McGovern in North Carolina, and Helms did something no North Carolina Republican senate candidate had done in the 20th century; he beat a Democrat. (His statewide victory margin was 54% to 46%, and in Chapel Hill Helms received just a few percentages less than Galifinakis). For the record the Democrat who had previously held that seat was B. Everett Jordan who was a conservative and had strongly supported segregation.

The Gaslight Inn was a popular sandwich and beer hangout in 1972. I always meant to see what Irish-Norwegian food tasted like, but just never got around to it.

Finally, there was a highly controversial store downtown that was attracting a great deal of national attention. It was called Adam and Eve and located at 123 North Columbia Street. They were the first "love boutique" in the United States, and sold a variety of high end condoms, as well as sex toys, and books with full-color photographs demonstrating esoteric forms of love making. Their landlord was local merchant and politician Carl Smith, who soon began receiving complaints from area residents about the business. Smith decided to not renew the lease after the end of their first year in the location, and Adam and Eve was forced to move to a much less desirable location at 421 West Franklin Street across from Dunkin Doughnuts.

This is the inside of Chapel Hill's "love botique" Adam & Eve when it was located in the Carl Smith Building on Columbia street in 1972. 

The is the first in a series of articles I will write over the next year on Chapel Hill in 1972.

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by Charly Mann with additional material supplied by Charles Church

While there may not be any future in living in the past, we should not take it for granted either. It is from Chapel Hill's history that we develop our community identity and the heritage we cherish when we walk along the sidewalks of downtown or root for a Tarheel team. In the past few months two of my Chapel Hill friends passed away, one who was 85 and the other 84. This made me wonder what Chapel Hill was like 85 years ago when they came into the world. After doing a few weeks of research and talking to a couple of people who had friends or relatives living in town at that time, I will now describe what Chapel Hill was like in those days.

Downtown Chapel Hill in 1927 looking directly at the new Sorrell building that housed the Carolina Theater. The sign above the theater was electric and really lit up Franklin street at night. The Carolina Theater moved across the street about ten years later, and this space became home of the Varsity Theater.

In 1927 several of the buildings which are now fixtures on Franklin Street were just being built including the Sutton building. That building would have three new stores: a stationery shop on the west side managed by Mrs. Sutton, the Sutton and Alderman drug store in the middle, and a new and improved Smoke Shop on the east side operated by Dean Paulsen. The Smoke Shop was modeled on the sandwich shops that had recently become popular in the North, and it offered more than fifty different types of sandwiches. The old Smoke Shop was located in a dilapidated one story wood frame structure about 30 yards to the east and was torn down and replaced by a brick building to house Lacock's Boot Company. (Many readers will remember this as Lacock's Shoe Store or Lacock's Shoe Repair.) Lacock's had previously occupied a very small space on Franklin Street since 1922, but this new location gave them the room to greatly expand their selection, which now included the three top brands of men's shoes in America - Nunn-Bush, Friendly Five, and Crossett (how many of you have ever heard of those brands?). The new store would also be the first in Chapel Hill to sell women's shoes and hosiery.

Shoeshine boy on Franklin street in 1927.

Chapel Hill's growth and progress could best be measured in 1927 by the doubling of the number of soda fountains on Franklin Street from four to eight. One of those new soda fountains was in the back of Foister's camera store and another in a new business named Jeff's (soon to be known as Jeff's Confectionery). Moreover two of the old soda fountains had been upgraded to include the very modern feature of electric refrigeration, meaning drinks were now served cold instead of lukewarm.

The most popular new business in town was the Carolina Theater which opened in the just completed Sorrell building (now home of the Varsity Theater), and managed by Carrington Smith who was 22 and would remain the theater's manager for the next fifty years. The centerpiece of the theater was a $10,000 Robert Morton Pipe Organ (that is about $138,000 in 2011 dollars).

This is the Robert Morton Pipe Organ that once was to the left side of the screen at the Carolina Theater. There were often bands and music concerts at the theater before the showing of a movie.

There was also great excitement in Chapel Hill that year because a large number of construction projects were recently completed or soon to be finished. The most significant to the town was that the primary road to Chapel Hill, NC 14 to Hillsborough (now called Highway 86), was being paved and was scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. Also that year the construction of Kenan Stadium, Graham Memorial, and Wilson Library had been completed. Also in 1927 the large amount on traffic on Chapel Hill's streets made it necessary for the town to install its first traffic light - a flashing red light that indicated one should proceed with caution through the intersection at Columbia and Franklin streets. Finally even though Chapel Hill had had phone service for more than ten years it was very limited, and only a handful of residences had phones. That year construction began on a new telephone facility behind the Presbyterian Church on Rosemary street designed to be large enough so that anyone who wanted a phone and lived within about a half a mile of downtown could get one.

The biggest crime story in 1927 Chapel Hill was the arrest of the town's primary bootlegger, "Sheriff" as he was nicknamed, Greeter Lloyd and the confiscation of 125 gallons of his popular corn whiskey. This was the era of prohibition in the United States mandated by the 18th amendment that prohibited the sale and manufacture of all alcoholic beverages. As a result of the arrest Carolina "frat men" began searching throughout Orange and Durham county for another bootlegger. It is said that for several months after the raid nights in Chapel Hill were the quietest in its history, and a large number of UNC male students seemed to have a doleful look on their faces.

That same year many Chapel Hill citizens were also complaining to the mayor, Zeb Council, that hitchhiking was so widespread downtown and those "bumming" rides so rude that it was public nuisance. Among the complaints was that hitchhikers would thumb their noses at drivers who refused to give then a ride, and that every evening at least 60 men would line up in the middle of Franklin Street and try to hail down every car passing them on the street, and would verbally insult those who would not stop.

UNC students who did not want to hitchhike could pool their money together to rent a car from Everett Pugh. The destination of most of the hitchhikers and cars was Durham where prostitutes were plentiful, "bootleg" alcohol was easy to find, and their were several magnificent theaters.

There was also quite a ruckus because of proposed admission standards for UNC students. Dr. F. W. Hanes, one of the state's most respected physicians, addressed the university faculty and students in Memorial Hall and advocated that all freshmen be subjected to a series of physical and psychological examinations to see if they would benefit from a college education. He said, "the human mind can be classified as easily as horses at a horse show," and that most intelligence traits are inherited. He thought the greatest obstacle for such a plan being instituted was that some people prevented from continuing in college because they were deemed to be intellectually unfit would get elected to the state legislature and in retaliation end state funding to the university.

In 1927 there were four large bands made up of UNC students that were much more popular than either the UNC football or basketball team. Pictured above is Alex Mendenhall and the Carolina Tarheel Boys. Below them are Jack Wardlaw and his Carolina Tar Heels. Other bands around this time were led by UNC students Kay Kyser and Hal Kemp, who would both become national music superstars.

Charles Church, whose father Tam Church was a student at UNC in 1927, recalls his father telling him there used to be a huge rivalry between the four classes. This sometimes led to violent outbreaks. He said the big thing was to run your class flag up the main flagpole and then surround and defend it with members of your class. Members of other classes would attack and try to get your flag down, no holds barred. For example, the freshman class might raise their flag and then the Senior class would try to take it down. The biggest guy in his class was a fellow nicknamed "Puny" Harper. He was an athlete, and his job was to stand right at the base of the flagpole and act as a last defense system if attacking students made it that far. Nobody ever did.

On at least one occasion Tam said there was a huge tug-of-war between two of the classes at Carolina. The "rope" was a thick steel cable. Several hundred male students were on each side and the power generated was enormous. One of the sides managed to generate some momentum and began pulling the other side at a fast rate of speed. The team being pulled tried to stop their movement by creating a large loop in the cable and throwing it over a nearby stone column. The force being generated was so great that the cable cut right through the column! As the loop tightened, one of the students was trapped between the cable and column and would have been cut in half, but at the last instant he saw what was happening and dropped to the ground. The loop barely missed him. The tug-of-war continued until the team being pulled managed to wrap the cable around a large tree. The cable bit into the tree, but the momentum was stopped and the tug-of-war was over.

Church also said that annually the women of Chapel Hill would bake cakes and donate them as prizes for finishing a long-distance race through and around town. Any student could enter and all you had to do was finish in order to win a cake. One of his best friends was on the track team and figured he was a shoo-in to win a cake because of his speed. Church took the tortoise-and-the-hare approach and slowly, but steadily, jogged the entire course and won a cake. His friend became exhausted long before the finish.

Tam Chuch is second from right with three fellow UNC students in Chapel Hill around 1927.

When Church arrived from Wilkes County, NC, as a student at UNC he had only one dime to his name. This was his "emergency money" and he was determined not to spend it unless he had to. He never had to. He found a job working for the Woolen family. He lived in their home on Franklin St. and his job was to keep their furnace going during the winter. This meant he had to get up extremely early every morning during cold months and fire up the furnace so that the house would be warm by the time the Woolens got out of bed. He also got a job working as a waiter in Swain Hall, the UNC dining hall at the time. Church also became part of Kay Kyser's cheering group called the Cheerios. They would march onto the football field at halftime and perform. They wore caps that were white on one side and Carolina blue on the other side. By turning their heads from left to right to expose either the blue or white sides, they could create images (same principle as the card sections years later). Charles Church still has his father's Cheerio cap. 

Tam Church also had a job helping to paint the seats in the new Kenan Stadium in 1927. Part of the paint crew were students and the rest were professional painters. Church took off his shirt in order to get a suntan while he painted. One of the professional painters picked up his shirt and cleaned his brush with it. Tam Church, a big, strong farm boy who also happened to be on the boxing team, confronted the painter. Words were exchanged and the painter advanced towards him as if to start a fight. Tam jabbed the painter once in the face and knocked him down. The painter immediately apologized and offered to replace the shirt.

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Pat (Alan) Thompson grew up in Chapel Hill during the tumultuous 1960s and has written a book entitled A Hollow Cup that vibrantly brings those days back to life. The book juxtaposes the racial turmoil of the time with a murder mystery and high school life, and will all resonate with anyone who knew Chapel Hill at the time. The story is largely based on real Chapel Hill people and events, yet as a work of "fiction" almost all the names of people and locations have been changed.

Following is a brief excerpt from the book that demonstrates how accurately Thompson has captured the town with the real names of places given in parenthesis.

WE SAT on a bench in front of Castle Hall (Battle-Vance-Pettigrew Dormitory), deserted now, gazing at the sporadic traffic on High (Franklin) Street. The crenellated facade of the old dormitory was pink in the fading light, and its upright stripe of bulky bay windows and diamond-shaped panes reflected the rays of the setting sun. Across the street, the flag on the pole at the Post Office was slack.

The evening had begun at Clark's (Sloan’s) Drugstore. I arrived early and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a cherry Coke. Charles and Edward walked in a few minutes later and sat down on either side of me. As I ate, we discussed the options. "Let's go to the Rat and see if the girls are there," Charles said, finally.

We left Clark's (Sloan's) and turned east on High (Franklin) Street, past the black women selling violets and marigolds and carnations. Minutes later we came to an alley between a gift shop and another drugstore, descended a set of concrete stairs and pushed through an unmarked door at the bottom of the steps.

Pat Thompson, the author of the new novel about Chapel Hill in the 1960s, as he looked in 1965 when he attended Chapel Hill High School

The Rathskellar was a dark warren of underground rooms filled with booths and tables and chairs that never seemed very clean. The walls and ceilings were rough and damp, like a grotto, and a strong odor of paraffin, from the flickering candles or embedded in the place itself, permeated the air. There were no windows and only one door, of solid oak, and a closed staircase to the right of the kitchen doors led vaguely upward. The menu was limited - hamburgers, beer, pizza. A mug of sweet tea that cost thirty-five cents was routinely re-filled by the waiters as they moved among the diners.

The girls were there. Jamie, Wendy and Grace were seated at a booth in the front room looking at menus. Jamie saw us and waved. We weaved through the tables and other customers and sat down. Wendy ordered two large pizzas and we all asked for sweet iced tea.

After the usual volleys back and forth about the older boys they were dating and the less glamorous girls we were left with, Edward addressed the table: "Who do you think has the biggest boobs in school?"

"That's easy," I said. "Nancy Campbell," naming a girl in the class ahead of us.

"What about our girls?" he asked.

"Y'all are such juveniles," Wendy said.

"Without naming names," said 'Charles, "it could be a girl sitting next to me." He nudged Grace.

"Would you shut up," Grace said.

"Could we please talk about something else?" said Wendy.

"Okay," said Edward. "Who's got the smallest boobs?"

"Again naming no names," Charles said, "it could be the other girl sitting next to me."

"Very funny," said Jamie.

"LET'S GO play some pool," Edward said. We left the bench and walked across the lawn. The Student Union (Graham Memorial) was a two-story brick building with eight granite columns and a carved balustrade where the roof line began. It had a grill, a barber shop, a bowling alley and a game room in the basement. There were offices and meeting rooms above ground, but we never went anywhere except the basement.

The pool table was in the game room. We could hear music from the jukebox as we walked down the steps. When we reached the doorway we stopped - the college boys didn't hassle us often, but it happened. There was a group of about twenty people at one end of the big room - some were dancing or standing around, others sitting in the overstuffed furniture. The-only light came from dim table lamps located throughout the room, and the jukebox.

I was surprised to find anybody there. The students were gone, and we usually had the place to ourselves in the summer. Edward started toward the crowd, and Charles and I followed.  

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by Stanley Peele

In Chapel Hill there is a small stream which starts in a marshy spot north of the western end of McCauley St. It then meanders down between Merritt Mill Road and Westwood Drive and then runs on down to Morgan Creek.

In 1942 when I was eleven years old, I decided that nothing would do but that I would fish this stream, catch a fish, and eat it. So I borrowed a frying pan from my mother, got some lard, matches, bamboo fishing pole, fishing hook, string and a scout’s knife. Then I set off with a pack on my back and the fishing pole in my hand.

I walked down the hill behind my home to the stream. We called it the "crik" and never knew it had a name. In those days, once you got to the stream, you were well into a forest. To the south the forest went on for miles without any houses. (Remember, Hwy. 54 by-pass had not been built.)

The stream was fresh, clear and clean. I followed it until it got close to Morgan Creek, where there was a little backwater spot that you could catch fish sometimes. Cedar bark was plentiful, so starting the fire was easy. Now it was time to look for bugs or worms for bait. I must have turned over a hundred rocks before I found a beetle. Gah! Too small! It didn’t work. So, I looked for worms and found a couple.

At last, it was time to fish!! Voila! I hooked a fish; a little one. Any real fisherman would have thrown him back. Not me. I had my fish, and I was excited!! My scout’s knife had a fish-scaler on the back, so I scaled the fish and cut off the head. At that point, the fish did not look appetizing. Hmmm. Now what do you do? Do you gut him or eat him whole, like a shrimp? I decided to clean him. By this time you have figured out that I knew nothing about cooking fish, and you are right.

So I cleaned it. At this point it began to occur to me that in Cub Scouts they had not taught me a thing about cleaning a fish. They taught about camping, making fires, hiking, poison ivy, snakes and knots. Yes, I knew about knots! All kinds of knots. But this fish was a puzzlement.

So I proceeded to clean the fish. In that process two things happened: First, I learned a lot about fish anatomy. Second, I plum lost my appetite for eating that fish.

I decided it was time to give up. I packed up my gear, including the frying pan, which was clean and unused. I carefully put out the fire, dowsing it with water about 9 times. (Yes, at least I knew how to do that.) Then I went home and fixed a delicious peanut-butter sandwich. Yum! My mom never asked me what I did with that frying pan.

For years afterward, I lied to my friends, bragging, and telling them the story of how I landed, fried, and ate a fish down at the ‘crik." So, this article is a confession. I never ate that fish.

Today, the crik is called Pritchard Branch. Its northern part is now much like it was 66 years ago. Its southern part passes through Chase Park. That, and the by-pass, have changed it.

Years ago I was presiding as judge in Chapel Hill. A man pled guilty to trespass. After hearing the facts of the case, I asked him where he lived.
"Chase Park," He replied.
"What part of Chase Park?" I asked.

He told me. He did not know that when he sat in his living room watching TV, he was in the exact spot where-- 52 years before then,-- a young boy had built a fire and tried to fry a fish.

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by Charly Mann

For most of its history the core of Chapel Hill thinking meant questioning the politically correct ideas of the day. This critical thinking is rooted in two debating organizations formed in 1795 which at one time every UNC student had to belong to. Members were expected to be able to speak extemporaneously and persuasively for five to seven minutes on any side of an issue. These groups also required students to spend several hours every day reading political speeches and editorials in newspapers, and then writing a weekly composition in support or opposition to something they had read.

In the early 1960s, when I was a young teenager, I came to know several popular Carolina professors who followed in this tradition. They all taught that one should be skeptical of people and ideas that were dogmatic or ideologically driven. These individuals influenced not only me and their students, but many others in the community to try to see and understand other people's views and beliefs. They emhasized that controversial subjects were almost always complex and that people who tried to make them simple should always be questioned.

Dr. Bernard "Bunny" Boyd was a professor of religion at the University of North Carolina for many decades. Throughout that time he was the most popular and inspirational teacher on campus.

Over the years I engaged in countless hours of conversation and letter writing with many of my Chapel Hill mentors. Early on I noticed they would not only engage in critiques of my ideas, but do the same of their own. UNC religion professor Bernard "Bunny" Boyd  took me aside when I was 17 after I had spoken at length about my opposition to the war in Vietnam and asked me how many people I knew well who supported the war. When I told him all my current friends shared my views he told me if I really wanted to test my beliefs I should spend time with people who supported the war and try to understand their perspective before I became totally intransigent in mine. He said otherwise I would become like most other people he knew whose opinions were sacrosanct and would not really listen to anyone else. I also remember when local record store owner Kemp Nye told me that I would never grow old if I was always open to new ideas. He told me, for example, that most people he sold music to were stuck with the tastes they had since they were in their mid-twenties. That statement still resonates with me more than 40 years later, and as a result I spend several hours every week listening to new music.

Doris Betts was a distinquished novelist who taught creative writing at UNC. She inspired many people with her wit and charm. She hated small talk and speaking to groups, but loved talking one on one in depth about almost any serious subject.

In 1969 I had the pleasure of getting to know UNC law professor Dan Pollitt. I remember him telling me I should never be too idealistic to compromise. He said wise people usually see much more grey than black and white. Pollitt also warned me that open-mindedness is one of the first things that is crushed in life. He said we are indoctrinated by our parents, friends, and culture, and are rarely ever mature enough to realize this.

Former UNC law professor Dan Pollitt on the right with his wife, State Senator Ellie Kinnaid, and one of his many admirers.

As I was preparing this article I went through a trunk full of letters from many of my Chapel Hill friends. I was surprised to find that many were practically essays on subjects as friendship, ambition, mental improvement, and the benefits of adversity in life. They also discussed current events or some work of literature in detail. Today the number of letters I get from friends is a small fraction of what it once was. Most communication is now through e-mails that rarely exceed a few sentences. Discussion and debate on issues have now been reduced to links to articles or videos by other people espousing views the sender claims to support. I wish there was a way to rekindle interest in the art of open discussion and thought-provoking letter writing, but I am afraid those days are over. Most of the people I know now seem comfortable attaching a label to themselves such as "conservative", "liberal Democrat", "libertarian", "Christian", or "atheist" and do not want to discuss their opinions in detail or show much interest in other points of view.

Contents of my 1968 letters file. From 1964 to 1995 each of these files contains at least two hundred letters averaging three pages in length. Since then, I have received fewer letters each year, and now very few are even a page long.

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 by Charly Mann

Every year in Chapel Hill is a very good one. I have six decades of fond memories of the place. 1976 was an especially good time for me to be in Chapel Hill. I had several dozen good friends in town, as well as one great one who was adept at pointing out my mistakes and imperfections to help me become a better person. The town was full of interesting people and the colors of the trees, stores, and clothing were never more vibrant.

In 1976 Harrison's was one of Chapel Hill's most popular restaurants

The favorite destination in Chapel Hill that year was the Morehead Planetarium where the dazzlingly colorful Lasarium krypton cosmic laser lightshow and concert took place every evening. If that was not colorful enough, almost every girl in town under the age of 25 wore a mood ring which contained a liquid crystal stone which would change colors depending on the mood of the wearer. I recall that they could display at least a dozen colors, and would be light blue when a person was most relaxed.

Chapel Hill continues to reinvent itself and improve. In 1976 this part of West Franklin street was in decay, but within a year it was thriving.

I enjoy recalling the look and the smell of past Chapel Hill years. Each vintage of the town has far more pleasant memories than bad, and these photographs capture at least part of the spirit of Chapel Hill in 1976.

 
This is me and my then wife (the wonderful Madonna Bentz - a Chapel Hill girl through and through) standing with my 1976 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow in front of my Dad's house on Whitehead Circle. I was then 26 and had recently acquired a taste for exotic cars. At the time a Rolls cost $36,000, not much different than the price of a fully loaded Toyota Prius today. Today a new Rolls Royce is $380,000.

The line in front of the Carolina Coffee Shop in 1976. Their clientele was always made up of the most intellectually stimulating people in Chapel Hill.  

The most popular apartments in Chapel Hill in 1976 included The Royal Park Apartments, Foxcroft Apartments, Camelot Apartments, Pinegate Aparments,  Kingswood Aparments, Estes Park, and Colony Apartments. Rents averaged $110 a month for a one bedroom unit, and $175 for three bedrooms with two baths. (A first class stamp that year was 13¢ and today it is 44¢.)

A beautiful young girl truly enjoying the Apple Chill Fair in 1976

 
1976 was the last year downtown Chapel Hill was filled with street musicians and merchants. A new ordinance prohibited these activities, and the famed Chapel Hill flower ladies were forced inside the walkway of NCNB plaza. 

The N.C. Cafeteria was a thriving eating establisment along Franklin Street for more than 40 years despite having the most unremarkable food in town. It was a favorite among many though; famed and very wealthy local author Betty Smith was a regular. I believe it closed in 1977.

In 1976 Chapel Hill's bus service was new, and it was still not too difficult to find good free parking downtown (like at University Square). That year Carrboro voters rejected becoming part of the local bus system.

Enjoying lunch in 1976 on the stone wall across from the Chapel Hill Post Office. Still the best spot to watch the world go by.  

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by Lyle Jones 

Albert Amon was an Assistant Professor of Psychology and in the spring of 1963 he regularly accompanied evening protestors of segregation practices at retail businesses in Chapel Hill. While he had not been a participant in the nonviolent protests, he was sympathetic to their cause and he became accepted as the unofficial photographer of the Chapel Hill Freedom Movement. Al’s faculty office was in Nash Hall on Pittsboro Street at the Psychometric Laboratory. I was the Lab Director and Al and I were close friends. He met with me each morning after a protest to tell me about his adventures the prior evening. Al suffered both from acute asthma and from serious hypertensive disorders; he told me and many others that he expected not to live very long. He explained to me that medications for either disease served to increase the level of the other, but that his attendance at protests served to relieve the symptoms of both diseases, leaving him in a welcome state of exhilaration.

This is a protest at the Dairy Bar which was located where The Courtyard is today. The Dairy Bar had the best malted-milkshakes in North Carolina, and also served burgers, drinks, and fries at their sitdown counter. Blacks were not allowed sitdown service here or at the Colonial Drug Store across the street until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1966.  

As protests in Chapel Hill gained more widespread attention, conservative forces in North Carolina expressed greater concern and became more openly critical of efforts to overturn existing State statutes that supported racial segregation. The prevailing view as expressed in the media was that the protests were led by communists on campus. Of interest is one of Jesse Helms' 5-minute editorials on TV station WRAL in the first week of June, 1963: he recommended that the NC legislature consider enacting an a law such as that proposed in Ohio to make illegal the presence of communists or communist sympathizers as speakers on state university campuses. At the time, Helms’ suggestion appeared to have been largely ignored.

Jesse Helms believed that the Civil Rights movement in Chapel Hill was being inspired by communists who were coming to speak at UNC.

Al Amon reported to me on the morning of June 11 about his traumatic experience in Raleigh on the previous evening when he had driven to the Sir Walter Raleigh Hotel, transporting three young African-American women who intended to try to register for a room that night. The hotel at that time served many NC legislators when the legislature was in session as it was then. Legislators were aware that a demonstration was afoot and had lined two-and-three deep on both sides of the path from the doorway to the registration desk so that the three young ladies were subject to extreme verbal abuse as they walked in to register. Of course, they were denied. Al stayed outside, but when asked by a legislator who he was and where he was employed, he stated that he was Al Amon, Assistant Professor in the Psychometric Lab at UNC (as Al told me and as also reported in the front-page story of the News & Observer of June 11, 1963). As he and I talked, Al was called by phone and asked to report to the office of Chancellor William Aycock. Al then returned to tell me that the Chancellor had received a call from a legislator in Raleigh, demanding that the Chancellor “fire that bastard Amon or else”. Aycock had replied that that was not the way the university did business. The Chancellor told Al that his Raleigh visit had created serious problems for the University, but that Al had the rights of every citizen to express himself freely so long as the expression remained within the law.

The two blacks in this photo are sitting down "illegally" at this counter waiting for service. They were arrested soon after this picture was taken. 

North Carolina Secretary of State Thad Eure observed the demonstration at the hotel on June 10 and was asked by Legislator Philip Goodwin (who was among those in the hotel lobby on June 10) to find some means of retribution "when UNC officials refused to discipline professors involved in the Raleigh protests". (Note that no professor other than Amon was present at the protests, Amon at that time had never been a protestor. He was an observer and a photographer, although later in 1963 and in early 1964, he became an active demonstrator at the Watts restaurant in Chapel Hill.) Eure acquired a copy of the Ohio proposal, adapted it for NC, and delivered it to Godwin on Tuesday, June 25. That same day it passed both the House and the Senate as HR 1395 and both bodies adjourned for the year. Eure boasted that he “kept it quiet between Monday and Wednesday from Governor Sanford". It was kept quiet from President Friday as well, and until its edition of Thursday, June 27, the N&O had published no report of the Act having been passed.

Bill Friday was the University of North Carolina President when the Speaker Ban law was enacted and fought hard to overturn it.

Eure has said, "It is absolutely correct to say the sit-ins [at the Sir Walter Hotel] were partly the motivation behind the [Speaker Ban Bill]". Another North Caolina legislator, "If you have to single out one issue to say what triggered it, it was Al Lowenstein [and the white professors] demonstrating in front of the Sir Walter Hotel filled with legislators from rural North Carolina". (Lowenstein was not present and as noted, the only professor there was Al Amon, not a participant, although having provided transportation for the three who were.)

Of course other issues also were in play, but had Amon not gone to the hotel on June 10, I believe there would not have enough heat to have generated by devious means and without debate HR1395 as it was enacted on June 25.

Alnert Amon took many photo of civil rights demonstration in Chapel Hill including the one above.

Later in 1963, Amon testified as a witness in Judge Raymond Mallard’s Orange County Superior Court. He then was charged by Judge Mallard with “inducing and procuring” another professor to trespass. Amon apologetically asked me for a loan of $500, the amount ordered by the judge to avoid arrest and detention; I was able to do so (and the loan was later repaid). The demonstrations and the Hillsboro trials are discussed in detail in John Ehle, The Free Men (1965) New York: Harper & Row. Several of Amon’s photographs are in that book, and many more are in the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Library.

In late summer, 1964, Al awoke at about 2am to walk to the medicine cabinet for asthma inhalator. Tragically, he collapsed in the enjoining room and died.
 

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by Charly Mann

Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex playing at the Varsity Theater in 1973

The post Vietnam era of the 1970s was probably the least stressful time to live in Chapel Hill. It was the time of sex, drugs, and rock n roll. UNC students had little worry in those days about finding a good job after graduating. Most young people were carefree about sex, and there was no need for men to use condoms since every girl seemed to be on the pill and there was no AIDS .Chapel Hill even had a "massage" parlor on West Franklin street where men could pay to have sex for less than $50. Marijuana was plentiful and cheap, and for those with a little money cocaine was the drug of choice around town.

UNC students personifying the Sex, Drugs, and Rock N' Roll Era of the 1970s 

The polyester Saturday Night Fever look did not take hold in Chapel Hill, but Disco music did in almost every bar and throughout campus. Lots of people danced, and though disco dancing really had little structure, everyone I knew, except for myself, was at least a good disco dancer.

Feet touching feet - 1970's UNC love 

I remember girls wore less make up in the 1970s, but for some reason many wore flavored lip gloss.

David Honigmann's Leather Shop was one of the most popular Franklin Street businesses in the 1970s.  

Though I have loved every decade I have lived in, the 1970s was the time I became an adult, bought a home, started a business, and got married. It was also a time everyone I knew in Chapel Hill seemed to be really enjoying themselves. Looking back at it I am sure we, and most of all our children, wonder how we ever had fun when there were no cell phones, texting, computers, iPods, or even video games. The big advancement in music in those days was that you could actually play your own music in your car with an 8 track or cassette player. Those wanting music on the go could buy a SONY WALKMAN - about the size and weight of a medium sized paperback book - which was simply a small portable cassette player you could strap on your arm or belt.

Michele Hurysz, UNC Class of 1979, known now as Mickey Mann, had a long career in marketing and sales at IBM, and now owns her own accounting firm in Austin, Texas.

On the minus side gas in the late 1970s did briefly reach a dollar a gallon in Chapel Hill, and that made many of us begin to think maybe there was something to worry about.

Troy's Stereo was a high end electronics store located in the center of Franklin Street in the 1970s. They were also the first business in Chapel Hill to sell pre-recorded cassettes.

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by Charly Mann

Edwin W. Fuller was a student at UNC from 1864 to 1867, and in his great, but largely forgotten, autobiographical novel the Sea-Gift (published in 1873) provides the first literary description about student life at the University of North Carolina. He was from Louisburg, a small town about 70 miles northeast of Chapel Hill, and was only 16 when he started at Carolina.

The 1873 original cover of the first edition of Edwin W. Fuller's Sea-Gift novel

What follows is a slightly edited excerpt from the novel that describes what it was like to be a UNC freshman at Chapel Hill in 1864. I think you will see that male UNC students have not changed much in 150 years. It is also interesting to see that owning a particular type of horse then had the equivalent status that a sports cars might have today.

We all talked pleasantly together during the few minutes it took the train to reach Durham. Getting off there we found a number of hacks waiting to convey us to Chapel Hill. There were many others going there, so we hastened to secure the best hack, and were soon jogging over that worst of roads. My friend Carrover secured a seat in another vehicle, but gave it up to a lady and child, and took a place with us.

We stopped only once to cool our horses under some large trees by a well, when Carrover opened his travelling case, and taking out a silver flask offered it first to Ned and myself. We both declined, but I found that, in this my first temptation, it was difficult to refuse, so afraid was I of seeming boyish. The other three all complimented its contents and became fully inebriated.

We finally reined up at a hotel in Chapel Hill and found the steps thronged with the Sophomores waiting for the hacks to bring in their victims. As soon as we got out we were surrounded by a score of them, all leering in our faces and yelling "Fresh! Fresh!" as if they had the article to sell.
With most impudent effrontery they gathered around us, each viewing with the others in casting ridicule upon us; nor were witty sallies alone the extent of their teasing; many of the coarsest personalities were indulged in. No one seemed to enjoy it much, and only an absurd sense of what was due a foolish college custom urged them on.

"Look what a big trunk," said one, striking my solitary piece of baggage with his cane hard enough to nearly blister the leather; "I'll bet he has homespun cake in there. Fresh, let me sleep with you," he continued, taking my arm, with every appearance of friendship, "but no, you are too dirty," releasing me with a gesture of disgust.

"Hoopee! what a foot!" said another, stooping down to take an exaggerated measurement of my foot. "Fresh, how do you get your boots on without a crane to lift your feet?"

"Well, Fresh," said a pert little fellow to Ned, "what is the price of tallow where you live? It ought to be very cheap if that is a sample in your face." As Ned was really very sallow this remark called forth a general laugh, during which we walked up the steps into the office, the crowd opening before and closing behind us in a continuous yell of ridicule and shame, heaped on us in every conceivable way.

Frank's friends all seemed glad to see him, but, even amid the storm of persecution that surrounded us, I could not help noticing that they all wore flash clothes, and had inflamed eyes and a profane swagger. Frank told us that it was out of his power to shield us from devilment in such a crowd, but that he would get us rooms for the night and we would be safe in them. He went in to see the proprietor and we were left standing in the midst of a deriding throng. I never felt so much like a culprit in my life. Nowhere could I look and find a single glance of sympathy. On every side were hoots, hisses and vulgar witticisms; and the attempt to utter a word was only the signal for such a roar as would drown every syllable. While standing thus, a tall, languid youth, with drooping side whiskers and a pair of gold eye-glasses, pushed his way through the crowd and asked, "What Fresh are these you have here? Introduce me." Someone shouted: "That is Mr. Danvers, Fresh; speak to him."

"How do you do, gentlemen? I am most happy to see you with us," said Danvers, offering his hand in the most cordial manner. Eager to touch somebody's hand that would sympathize, I extended mine gladly, but ere I touched his he drew it back with the sneer, "Oh, no, Fresh, you must wash yours first; you've been travelling, you know."

"Shame! shame! Danvers. A Junior devilling Fresh!" exclaimed several voices.

"I confess," said Danvers, turning off, laughing; "but it was such a good thing. They are greener than verdure itself, and will swallow anything you offer!"

We had scarcely bathed and gotten rid of the dust of travel when the gong sounded for supper. We went down and found the tables occupied entirely by the students, as there was little or no travel to such a retired village, from the outside world. A bevy of Sophomores rose on our appearance and escorted us to the table, and, drawing back our chairs, held them for us. Bewildered by their strange attentions, we attempted to seat ourselves, but, of course, found the chairs non sub nobis. I recovered myself, but Ned plumped heavily down upon the floor, to the boisterous merriment of the whole room.

At last seated, and served by the regular attendants, we attempted to eat, but every mouthful was declared enormous by those watching us, every action said to be ill mannered, and our whole demeanor so criticized that our appetites departed and we felt no desire for food. If we had, there would have been little opportunity for its gratification. If I chanced to turn my head, a teaspoonful of salt went into my tea. If I asked the waiter for a biscuit, my tormentor across the table would pour a dozen into my plate. Silver forks and napkin rings were dropped into my pockets, and the proprietor called to identify his property. When we rose we were escorted from the room by the same guard of honor, even to the door of our room, where they left us for the night.

OUR second day was spent in the ordeal of examination, in the selection and arrangement of our room, and engaging board at the most eligible place. Our room, at the suggestion of Mr. Carrover, was chosen in the South Building, and after innumerable expenditures, and Ned's taste for arrangement, it really looked comfortable and home like. We passed the different departments of study without any serious difficulty, and the bell for evening prayers found us ready for the session's work.

The cover of this later edition of Sea-Gift shows the Peter Dromgoole duel that has become part of the Gimghoul Castle legend

We took a little stroll after tea, and were fortunate in meeting no one. Returning to our room and lighting up, we got our books and commenced to prepare, with all the interest of novelty, our lessons for the morrow. We had not been thus engaged more than half an hour when there arose in a distant part of the campus the most diabolical din conceivable: a fiendish combination of all the disagreeable noises produceable. Tin horns, tin pan drums, bells, whistles, paper trumpets, and the vox humana in its loudest, harshest notes, all roared forth their terrible discord on the still night air.

We leaned out of our window and listened to this caravan of horrid sounds approaching, till it entered the South Building. Even then we did not suspect its destination, and not till we heard the procession tramping noisily up the stairs leading to our room did the truth flash upon us that we were the intended victims. It was too late to fasten the door. In a moment the room was full of our tormentors, each one trying to drown the other's clamor by extra exertion on his own part. They formed a circle around us and beat, and blew, and shouted till we were deafened and stupefied with the noise.

Suddenly it ceased--everything was ominously still, and with sober face every one commenced active preparation for the more serious business of the evening. The door was closed and locked, the bed was stripped and the sheets hung up at the windows, with their edges stuffed in the cracks. Each then drew forth from his pocket an enormous pipe, and putting tobacco in it, began to smoke. Not the ordinary puffs of a pleasure whiff, but lighting about half a pipe full they would put more tobacco in on the fire, and instead of drawing, blow with all their might, ejecting from the bowl of the pipe a stream as large, and almost as solid as a man's wrist. As soon as I divined their object I got up and lay down across the bed, taking the pillow in my hand, that I might lay my face in it if it became very bad.

The great volumes of smoke, rolling up to the ceiling, now began to spread into a thickening vapor that filled the room, growing denser and denser every second, and I found myself constantly coughing. Another minute and the moving forms of the smokers could scarcely be seen, while the lamp standing on the mantel was only a dim halo in the white fog. The smokers now had to relieve each other, placing a guard at the door to prevent our exit. Thicker and thicker grew the cloud, till the lungs, wearied with incessant coughing, almost refused to inhale the bitter, sickening air. My eyes streaming with water closed themselves in spite of me, and my eyeballs were crossed with the nausea. I pressed my face down into the pillow for relief, but even that seemed a bag of tobacco, that was driving its dust into my throat. Every particle of air had its concomitant particle of smoke, and with every wretched gasp I gulped down a wad of poison. 

A ton of weight seemed pressing on my chest, and my eyeballs almost started from my head in my intense efforts to feed my famished lungs, and to prevent the suffocation I was enduring. A few more gasps and a death-like sickness seized me; the smoke closed around my head like the band of the Inquisition, and pressed all consciousness and sensation out. With a blinding rush of darkness over my brain I fainted.

The first thing I knew as a fact of consciousness was a vague perception of the odor of camphor and brandy; then I knew that my hands were being violently chafed, and that something cold and wet lay on my forehead. My temples ached with a dull, unrelievable pain, and a deadly nausea seemed to pervade the very atmosphere. I opened my eyes and found that I was in a strange room, on a strange bed, around which were grouped half a dozen forms with anxious, fear-whitened faces. Some were holding bottles, some basins of water, and all intently watching my face for signs of returning consciousness. I swallowed a little of the brandy they held to my lips, and as it burnt its way through my system I found strength to speak. Sitting upon the side of the bed, with the support of two of those attending, I asked, in an idiotic way: 

"What--are--you all doing here? Where--am--I?" 

At last we were fairly inducted into college life, and commenced a regular routine of daily duties. Our room was pleasantly situated, and all our neighbors agreeable. As new victims continued to arrive we were forsaken by the Sophs, much to our delight, and were permitted to enjoy a good meal at the table unmolested. 

Ned and I had formed as yet no circle of acquaintance. We were together nearly all the time, and having made up our minds, according to the invariable rule, to study harder than anybody ever did, we did not care much for the society of others. We both studied hard, and our progress in the various branches of instruction was, we thought, satisfactory. There was this difference between us, however--Ned studied uniformly, while I studied by impulse. The was that while many of my daily lessons exceeded Ned's in preparation and recitation, yet his average was far greater than mine. Ned studied to learn all his lesson--to know every part of it; while I often picked over those points on which I thought I should most likely be examined. He studied to master the subject--to become acquainted with a language or to understand a problem; I studied to make a good recitation. He stored up for the future; I looked no farther ahead than the next morning's lecture. 

I remember well, when we got to reading Homer, Ned would worry a whole morning over an idiom; and passages that I found no difficulty at all in rendering would afford him an hour's work with lexicon and grammar. I had a shorter way of doing things. I would take my Anthon's Edition--great friend of the student!--and, with the aid of its voluminous references, and the notes in Kühner, I would easily cram all that it was probable the professor would touch upon. Simple, easy parts, that I was sure he would not notice, had to take care of themselves. When we went in to recite, all the portions I had prepared so carefully were given to others to render or construe, while I would be taken up on some part I had thought too simple for my attention, and would be found woefully ignorant. So, about twice a month I would make a brilliant recitation, the balance of the time failures.

I suffered, too, from that great cheat of life, the self-promise to "turn over a new leaf." Regularly every Monday morning, in accordance with the previous week's resolve, I would start afresh, and, after tremendous application and intense mental effort, would go to the section room and pass the hour without being noticed. Leaving it without having had an opportunity to manifest my diligence, I would feel a little less careful about Tuesday's preparation. After another day of silence I would merely glance at Wednesday's lessons; and Thursday, with just a peep between the pages, I would be called to recite, and fail signally. The mortification would then evoke the firm resolve to "turn over a new leaf," but, inasmuch as the next day was Friday, I would conclude to wait till Monday. So Friday would go without study, and the next week would come and join the retreating line of its predecessors, and nothing would be accomplished but a slowly increasing indifference to failure, and a growing inability to reform. And in all my life since then there has still predominated that fault, turning over new leaves, and letting the very first breeze of difficulty flutter them lightly back again!

Accordingly, when the bell for lecture rung, instead of going with Ned to the section room, I strolled through the campus and gave myself up to sweet thoughts of Lillian. It was one of my autumn days. The sun was shining with a still, mellow light through a golden haze, which seemed to have fallen on all Nature, so yellow were the leaves on the trees and the stubble in the fields. The air was still and dreamy, and the campus, usually so full of noise and life, empty and deserted. I tried to think of Lillian as the only one in the world besides myself; of the universe as being made for us two, and of how sweetly we would live for each other. But somehow my soul would not fall into the delicious reverie her name usually inspired. For the first time since I had met her I could not think constantly of her, but my mind was ever and anon recurring to father's letter and his admonitions. There was an aching at my heart, a restless unhappiness I could not understand. I wandered about for half an hour, then sought out the negro who rang the bell, obtained the belfry keys from him, and went up in the cupola of the South Building. Taking my seat on the window ledge, I gazed on the beautiful scene around. A large extent of country spread out before me, gently undulating, and specked here and there with lonely white houses or groups of negro quarters. The haze of the zenith softened down to a deep shaded violet as it met the horizon, and long lines of smoke stood stiffly around the verge, like gray sentinels guarding the Great Beyond. A little way off a herd of cows were grazing, and the hoarse monotones of their copper bells were just audible enough to be drowsy; while along the red line of the road that wound out of sight by the cemetery, a white top wagon, with sluggish horses, was slowly crawling on to Raleigh.

Patting down my conscience with these good resolutions, I chanced to look out on the scene again, and saw, coming down the road from Raleigh, a horse and rider. The horse was blanketed, but I knew by the lordly bearing and arching neck that it was Phlegon, and I clambered down from the belfry, and ran down to the hotel to meet him. The bell rang for the close of lectures at the same time, and the students were thronging from the various lecture rooms, and many shouted at me as I hurried through the campus. I reached the hotel just as Reuben rode up. I had hardly gotten through making inquiries about them all at home when the students, in large numbers, came down to the hotel, and commenced making comments on myself and my horse. Some of my friends, however, coming to me and desiring to see him, I made Reuben take off his blankets and move him up and down the street, to show his action. As Reuben stripped the cloth from his glossy hide, and the splendid form stood revealed in its matchless grace, a murmur of approbation ran through the crowd. And Phlegon was in every respect worthy.

An English thoroughbred, he possessed the marks of an aristocratic ancestry, lords of the turf for many generations. The sharp pointed ears, the mild dark eye, and the tapering mouse colored muzzle, with its red open nostrils, were a coat of arms as perfect as argent fields and unicorns rampant.

His color was a beautiful claret, and his coat as glossy as if just washed in the ruby wine. His limbs tapered delicately, but the muscles were round and full of strength. He had evidently been the pet at home since I had left, and it was with no little pride that I ordered Reuben to take him round to the stables I had engaged for him. I went back to my room, feeling a good.

Sadly Edwin Fuller died at the age of 28 in 1876. The novel this is excerpted from, the Sea-Gift, did not become popular until several years after his death. It soon was referred to as the "Freshman Bible" throughout the United States. The novel was largely responsible for popularizing the Dromgoole legend as it includes the story of the duel that took place on what is now the grounds of Gimghoul Castle. The book was also highly influential to the writing of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind and Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel which both borrowed key plot elements from it.

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by Charly Mann

The Chapel Hill Museum building on Franklin Street was once the Chapel Hill public library 

I recently completed a cross country trip along Route 66 visiting more than three dozen small and medium sized towns along the way. Towns ranging in size from 500 to 30,000 all had one or more local museums celebrating their history that were largely funded by the local government. A city as vibrant, large, and with as much important history as Chapel Hill needs a public museum to celebrate its glorious past.

The Chapel Hill Museum is an invaluable archival repository for students, tourists, historians, and those like me who love Chapel Hill's past. Chapel Hill is unique among places on this earth, and has been a bastion for creativity and social progress. The Chapel Hill Museum is the one place in town where we can all  appreciate and be made aware of the town's rich historical legacy.

This is an exhibit in the Chapel Hill Museum commemorating the Intimate Bookshop 

Yesterday I received an alarming letter from Paul Green about the impending closure of the Chapel Hill Museum which I have condensed below:

The Chapel Hill Museum will soon be closing its doors unless people like you help keep it open.

The museum reminds everyone who walks through its doors why we all love Chapel Hill. And it does so in an intimate setting that is a piece of history in its own right, the East Franklin Street building that for nearly thirty years served as the town library.

The museum recently requested funding from the town of approximately $49,000 for future maintenance, upkeep, and operational costs of the town-owned building it occupies. For whatever reason, the Council voted to allocate less than half that amount, a little over $20,000. That's the short version of events.

This is part of the extensive James Taylor exhibit at the Chapel Hill Museum. James Taylor attended elementary school in Chapel Hill.

The museum has a few stalwart supporters on the council, like Laurin Easthom, Sally Greene, and even the fiscally conservative Matt Czajkowski. 

Now how about getting the rest of the council to realize the museum is a valuable town resource. Please do what I'm presently unable to, and speak up for the museum and our town's history. Send an e-mail to the mayor and all town council members at once by using this address:

mayorandcouncil@townofchapelhill.org

Let the mayor and town council know we value the Chapel Hill Museum, and it would be a terrible thing for it to close. The right thing for them to do is to fully fund the museum's request.

This is the study of long time Chapel Hill resident and distinquished playwright Paul Green who died in 1981. It is now housed in the Chapel Hill Museum

It will only take a few minutes of your time. Please do it today. Because you know what? Your past neighbors are counting on you.

Sincerely,

Paul Green
Chapel Hill

p.s. - please forward to friends.

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by Charly Mann

Outskirts of Chapel Hill in 1954 near current location of Eastgate Shopping Center. The highway to Durham was then an uncrowded two lane road.

What makes Chapel Hill great? For me it is three things, the people, the location, and the enduring charm of the campus and downtown.

From its inception the town has been the home of one of most diverse, creative, and often eccentric group of individuals in the nation. As a result Chapel Hill is a thriving community that has a history of innovative one-of-a-kind restaurants, bookstores, bars, and clothing stores. There is also an array of natural and architectural beauty on the campus and downtown that creates an atmosphere that emotionally binds one to the place.

South Building and The Old Well in May of 1963

Unlike most towns that arise because of commercial consideration, Chapel Hill's location was primarily chosen because of its magnificent forest and scenic terrain. The town is an oasis of ancient trees, historic buildings, and great traditions. It is also home to some of the friendliest people on the planet. The clear blue sky, that is most often overhead, adds another charm to the place.

Chapel Hill has long had a special music in its air that could be heard nowhere else. It goes back to the guitar and mandolin ensembles that were popular on campus in the late 19th century and continued through the enormously successful UNC bands of Hal Kemp and Kay Kyser in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Since the 1960s Chapel Hill's music scene has been an incubator for great musical talents that have included James Taylor, Arrogance, Mike Cross, Jim Wann, Bland Simpson, and the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

This is an illustration from 1902 when Chapel Hill was the music capital of the world. Guitar players came from all over the country to live here and join a band. This is a part of Chapel Hill history that very few people have ever heard of today .

More than anything else Chapel Hill is the home to a university where the brightest youth in North Carolina come to improve their minds and body, and often leave with the ability to achieve their dreams.

Chapel Hill Memories was created so that all former and current Chapel Hill residents can have an opportunity to share their recollections about this wonderful community. We also encourage our readers to do research and conduct interviews with older Chapel Hill residents. Please help preserve the memories of this town. Send your collections to: chmemories@gmail.com.

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by Charly Mann

Chapel Hill has changed a lot in the last 100 years. Since starting Chapel Hill Memories a year ago I have been fortunate to talk to two centenarians from Chapel Hill which has inspired me to write about what the town was like in 1910.

The population of Chapel Hill in 1910 was 1,449. The total value of all the real estate and personal property in town was less than a million dollars. The combined value of all the buildings, houses, and property in Chapel Hill that year was $410,562. All the personal property in town had a value of $585,750.

UNC students gather in front of their social club in downtown Chapel Hill with their servant in 1910

The mayor of Chapel Hill was Algernon S. Barbee, who graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1860 and served as Lieutenant Commander for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The chief of police was D.S. Long.

1910 Chapel Hill mayor Algernon Barbee

Chapel Hill had four churches in 1910. Reverend Starr was the minister at Chapel of the Cross, the Episcopal church. R.L. Smith was the minister of the Baptist congregation. W.S. Patton was the pastor for the Methodists, and Mr. Moss was reverend at the Presbyterian church.

Advertisement for the University of North Carolina in 1910. In those days there were no SATs or college entrance exams. Most students who went to UNC came from wealthy and upper middle class families.

More than half of the population of Chapel Hill were farmers, and their primary cash crop was cotton. A lucrative business in town in those days was owning a cotton gin, and there were six of these in Chapel Hill in 1910. These machines quickly separated commercial cotton from its seeds. Fred Sparrow, I.S. Riggsbee, and G.W. Purefoy had the three most popular cotton gins in town.

During the early twentieth century many wealthy Cubans sent their sons to UNC, and there was even a Cuban club on campus. This is Francisco Fuentes from the UNC class of 1910.

Chapel Hill had two hotels in 1910, the University Inn and Pickard's Hotel, both were rather rustic and primitive. If you could afford it, better lodging could be found at numerous boarding houses in town, which were actually local houses that had extra rooms for rent. The best was the home of Mrs. A.A. Kluttz. The other houses in town that rented rooms were run by Mrs. W.L. Thankersley, Mrs. Gattis, Mrs. J.C. Cole, Mrs. Josephine Archer, Mrs. E.W. Nevill, Mrs. Mary Burch, Mrs. J.E. Merritt, Mrs. W.J. A. Cheek, and Mrs. R.S. McRea. Most of these women's husbands were merchants in town or professors at the University. Two men, W.B. Thompson and T.B. Farrar also rented rooms in their houses. Swain Hall, besides being the student dining hall, was then the most inexpensive place to rent a room. There was no running water nor indoor plumbing in any of these hotels or boarding houses in 1910.

An old man in 1910 standing by a rock wall along Franklin Street next to where Graham Memorial is today. In the background is the Pickard Hotel. 

In 1910 there was only a rudimentry water service in Chapel Hill and there was no indoor plumbing nor hot water. People did not bathe on a regular basis, but in 1910 a business in town offered hot baths. 

There were three drug stores in Chapel Hill in 1910; Eubanks, Patterson Brothers, and Norwood Drug Company, as well as four town doctors, Lewis Webb, E.A. Abernathy, C.S. Mangum, and Brack Lloyd. If you wanted meat there were two butcher shops where chicken and cows were regularly slaughtered in the back. They were owned by William Creel and R.M. Leigh.

Homes and buildings in 1910 were heated in Chapel Hill by either by coal or wood, and two merchants in town, G.C. Pickard and T.E. Best, provided these essentials. There was electricity in Chapel Hill then but it was primarily used for lighting, and the electric company was owned and operated by the University. There were also two hardware stores in town; one owned by S.L. Herndon and the other by H.C. Willis.

1910 UNC baseball team. Until the early 1960's college baseball was almost as popular as football in North Carolina. (Basketball did not attract a large following until about 1960.) From 1935 to 1986 North Carolina was the only state that had Easter Monday as a state holiday because it was the day of the NC State - Wake Forest baseball game 

Chapel Hill had only two small restaurants in 1910, one in the house of J.E. Gouch (later changed to Gooch), and the Royal Cafe.

This is a 1910 parody ad for Gooch's Cafe, then one of only two restaurants in Chapel Hill

Shoes were often custom made in those days, and Chapel Hill had two shoe makers, George Trice and Brooks Brewer. The primary means of transportation in town was by horse, and Chapel Hill had two thriving livery stables, one owned by G.C. Pickard and the other by L.J. Hargrave. One was located behind where the Carolina Coffee Shop is today, and the other where the sundial now stands in front of the Morehead Planetarium.

A black carriage driver with "yessuh boss" attached to photo in Chapel Hill from 1910. Fifty years later there were two taxi services in Chapel Hill. One was white owned and operated called Tarheel Cab, and the other was black called Carolina Cab. Carolina Cab operated more than 16 blue and white Checker cabs and was the dominant cab company for both black and white passengers by 1965.

Mr. Pickard was a successful businessman who was also a grocer and owned a hotel. This ad is from 1910. Later they would offer a shuttle service by automobile to Durham.

In 1910 Chapel Hill had a weekly newspaper called The Weekly News that was operated by W.B. Thompson. The Tar Heel in those days was published twice a month. Few people in town could afford a camera, but Robert Foister and W.B. Sorrell had photography shops downtown where you could get a portrait made.

This is a black UNC servant carrying student laundry in front of Foister's Camera store on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill in 1910.

The average lifespan for a Chapel Hill resident in 1910 was 47. E.A. Brown and A.J. Hargrave were the town's two undertakers and embalmers.

In 1910 UNC's debate team won contests against Tulane and the University of Pennsylvania, both of which received more press coverage than any sporting event.

UNC Class of 1910 senior Levy Ames Brown. Note he graduated at the age of 18. In those days every student knew everyone else enrolled in their class.

As a young boy in the 1950s I spent a lot of time in the woods around Chapel Hill and often found abandoned saw mills (There was even one in the woods behind Glenwood School). I have discovered that in 1910 there were seven saw mills in operation in what are now Chapel Hill's city limits.

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 by Charly Mann

To many of us the Vietnam War is a grim memory of a United States military failure and wasted lives. During the time the war was fought it sharply divided the country. To those of military age the draft meant you might actually have to go fight and die for your country in a war you did not support. In 1968, I was an eighteen year old freshman at the University of North Carolina, and was one of the leaders of an anti-war group on campus called the UAWMF (United Anti-War Mobilization Front). Before Vietnam turned into a major war in 1967, 89% of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do what was right. By the end the war in 1973 only 19% of Americans felt this way according to a Gallup poll. I was outraged that we were fighting to support a South Vietnamese government that was highly corrupt against an almost equally deplorable totalitarian North Vietnam. I felt the Vietnam War was a civil war that needed to be decided by its own people.

Daily Tar Heel article from November 13th, 1968 about U.S. soldier coming to UNC to talk to students at Y-Court about his opposition to the war in Vietnam 

In the Fall of 1968 only a handful of UNC students were actively involved in the anti-Vietnam War Movement. I joined a small group called the UAWMF headed by a brilliant and affable senior from New Orleans named Adolph Reed. Our focus that semester was supporting American soldiers who believed the war was wrong. Even though soldiers were supposed to have the same right to freedom of speech as other Americans, the United States military was severely punishing soldiers who spoke out against the war. The largest military base in the United States, Fort Bragg, was less than a two hour drive from Chapel Hill, and my organization worked directly with several soldiers there who opposed the war.

Article from the Saturday November 16, 1968 Duke Chronicle about trip to Fort Bragg that day organized by the UAWMF to hand out leaflets

I was the information director for the UAWMF, which meant I contacted the press about any events that our group sponsored. On November 8th, 1968 we brought three Fort Bragg soldiers to UNC to speak to the crowds on their way to that day's homecoming football game. One of these soldiers PFC. Walter Kos was court-martialed for his activities there. Another, PVT. Joseph Miles, was restricted to base and reduced in rank for speaking out against the war to UNC students. The other soldier, PFC. Keith Jones, returned to Chapel Hill the following Tuesday, and I sat with him for several hours at a table at Y-Court as he talked to a large crowd of students about why he thought our involvement in Vietnam was wrong. Jones was not in military uniform, nor did he demonstrate against the war, both of which are prohibited to active duty military personnel. After this event I took Jones to Chapel Hill High School, Duke University, and North Carolina Central to speak informally to students. That evening Jones stayed at my home and told me in greater detail why he opposed the war, as well as about the abuse and intimidation soldiers received who wanted to express their views against fighting in Vietnam. He told me that at least 1,000 GIs at Fort Bragg felt the same way he did, but remained silent out of fear. The next day when Jones returned to Fort Bragg he was restricted to base, and later transferred to a more remote military post.

Before we left for Fort Bragg I had everyone going sign their names in my notebook. From top to Bottom are John Steiger (junior), Scott Bradley (senior), Bob Lock (senior), Sam Austell (junior), Don Storey (sophomore), Alan R. Cole (freshman from N.C. State), Hugh McConnell (graduate student), Mike Cozza (senior), Charles Mann (freshman), Lloyd Clayton (sophomore), Adolph Reed (senior), George A. Rose (freshman)

With the military muzzling the voices of the soldiers our group supported we decided to organize a group of students to go down to Fort Bragg on Saturday November 16th to hand out leaflets about freedom of speech for soldiers, which also included information about why some soldiers were speaking out against the war.  I had flyers printed about the event which were posted at schools and universities throughout the Triangle area, and also got the Daily Tar Heel and Duke Chronicle to write small articles about our plans. On Saturday those wanting to go to Fort Bragg met at the Morehead Planetarium parking lot. There were 11 students including myself, and a reporter from the Daily Tar Heel who wanted to go along to report about our activities. As we turned out of the parking lot in our two car caravan we soon realized there were two other cars following us. They continued to tail behind us for the rest of the day.

Adolph Reed (center), the head of the UAWMF, meeting with students in the Morehead Planetarium parking lot on November 16th, 1968 before leaving for Fort Bragg

Our plan was never to break any laws or engage in any act of civil disobedience at Fort Bragg. It was only to find a large open place where soldiers congregated when off duty to offer them our leaflets. Fort Bragg was then (and I think still is) a large open military reservation without fences or sentries which anyone could drive through. The first thing we did upon arriving at Fort Bragg was to go to the Operations and Provost office on the base to seek permission to hand out our leaflets at an approved location. 

There we met with Major Vernon Keller who was the Operations and Provost Marshall of the base. When we made our request to him he read us a short document entitled Title 18 U.S. Code Section 1382, which said picketing, demonstrations, sit-ins, political speeches, protest marches, and "similar activities" were not permitted at Fort Bragg. He said this prohibited us from handing out our leaflets anywhere on the base. I said to Major Keller that I did not think handing out leaflets was a similar activity to picketing, sit-ins, and political speeches. Nevertheless our group agreed we should consider Major Keller's directive carefully, and we left Fort Bragg and drove to nearby Fayetteville to discuss what to do next.

This is me, Charly Mann, second from the right in white pants explaining to Fayetteville police Sgt. C.B. Morrison that our group had no plans to break the law during our visit to Fayetteville and Fort Bragg. To my right is Daily Tar Heel reporter Mike Cozza. On my left is Adolph Reed and next to him is Andy Rose.

Of the eleven UNC students on the trip only myself and Andy Rose were freshmen. Most of the rest were seniors or graduate students. Andy and I had both worked with several of the soldiers that had been court-martialed or reduced in rank for trying to exercise their freedom of speech, and argued that handing out leaflets was not a "similar activity" as those described in Section 1382. None of the other students agreed with us, but said they would sit in the cars if the two of us wanted to hand out leaflets. At 6:30 PM we drove back onto the base and found a movie theater. We parked the two cars and Andy and I got out and handed out leaflets. Mike Cozza the reporter of the Daily Tar Heel also got out of the car with a writing pad to cover our activities. Less than thirty minutes later the place was swarming with military policeman and other plain clothes officers who took all twelve us to a prison on the base. During the more than seven hours we were there each of us were subjected to intimidating and harassing interviews in which we were accused of being communist agents, and told that we would each likely be spending at least six months in prison. We were also told that because our crime was so severe we would likely not be able to find meaningful employment after college. Not surprisingly several of the students were in tears after going through their interrogations. Finally at 2 AM we were expelled from the base and told we had all been arrested for breaking a federal law.

The news about our arrests for handing out leaflets at Fort Bragg made headlines across the state and nation on the following Sunday (November 17th, 1968) and Monday. 

The week after my arrest I was singled out for more harassment from the military's intelligence division (the CTD). That Tuesday two agents visited me at my home. First they wanted me to admit that I or other members of my group were communists. Then they informed me that all U.S. soldiers had the same rights to freedom of speech as civilians, but when I said that two of the soldiers I had worked with had recently been court-martialed for speaking out against the war they said they were unaware of this. Towards the end of our hour long conversation they were able to shock me with the information that I had been under filmed surveillance for several weeks. They said that they had proof of me committing another federal crime by wearing a Navy jacket on November 11th. I told them that jacket was bought at the local PTA Thrift Shop, but they demanded I turn the jacket over to them now or face even more serious charges. After taking my jacket they let me know that they thought the editorial views of the Daily Tar Heel were communistic.

This photograph is from the day of the trial of The Fort Bragg 12 on November 25th, 1968. We are standing outside the courtroom in Fayetteville. Andy Rose is on the far right, Adolph Reed in the center, and Scott Bradley on his left. 

Unlike today, the law moved very quickly in 1968 and our trial was set for less than two weeks later on November 25th. I, along with the ten other students who were arrested, was represented by four attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union headed by Charles F. Lanbeth and assisted by Dale Whitman, a UNC professor of law. Mike Cozza, the DTH reporter, did not have representation, because he was sure, as was almost everyone else, that charges would be dropped against him since he was not even part of our group and only reporting on the event. Our legal team not only proved the Fort Bragg regulation was too vague to prohibit handing out leaflets, but preventing us from handing out leaflets was also unconstitutional. This is because giving out leaflets is a passive act, and since newspapers were also sold throughout the base, and we could have bought ads in them that contained what was in our leaflets, our rights were being denied under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Our judge, Wallace C. Jackson, however, had made up his mind on the case long before the trial started. As soon as both sides rested he looked at the table where I was sitting and read the following words, "I implore you to return to the ways of your forefathers and spurn the lawless and vociferous doctrine of hatred and division you are spreading." That statement came as a shock to me since our forefathers had stood up against the unjust British government that tried to squash people who criticized it in 1776.

The outcome of the trial made headlines around the country and many newspapers had accompanying editorials calling the verdict an outrage.

Judge Stevens then took aim at Rose and me as he dismissed the charges against most of the other defendants. He gave us six month sentences, he said, "in order to protect free speech, because if this country is turned over to the elements for which we worked, the first thing that will be prohibited will be free speech." I had not been aware I working for another element. I was simply against the United States involvement in Vietnam War. I also knew from my own thoughts that exercising freedom of speech is something I held dear. For no reason anyone could discern, Scott Bradley, who was seated in one of the cars, was given a three month sentence. Most shocking was that Mike Cozza, the Daily Tar Heel reporter, was sentenced to 60 days in jail. Cozza was not even part of our group and told the military authorities when we first met with them he was a reporter observing our activities. Judge Stevens explained his bizarre decision this way: "Cozza's action was like getting a phone call that a murder was about to be committed, and then riding in the car with the murderers." Obviously he thought Andy and me handing out leaflets was akin to committing a murder. Cozza unfortunately did not have the means to appeal such an outrageous decision and accepted his sentence.

Over the next year much of my life was sidetracked by the appeals process in this case. More than a year later, on November 28th, 1969, the United States Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, overturned our convictions.

This is part of the ruling that overturned my conviction in the Fort Bragg case as well as those of Andy Rose and Scott Bradley. It was handed down on November 28, 1969 by the United States Court of Appeals. 

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Chapel Hill Memories is meant to be a collaborative effort in which people relate their memories of the people, places, and events in Chapel Hill's past. Since its inception, I have been encouraging others to submit articles to Chapel Hill Memories. Thus far it has been almost exclusively me writing about my experiences and historical research I have done on the community. I am now beginning an indefinite hiatus from writing new articles for Chapel Hill Memories, and urge others to begin contributing their own recollections.

I have been thrilled by the large number of visitors to the site every day, and the hundreds of e-mails and phone calls I get each month relating to it, but what I really want is for others to share their stories about this wonderful place. 

Please submit articles on your Chapel Hill memories to:
chmemories@gmail.com

I can also provide a mailing address if you need to submit hard copies of your pieces.

Thanks for the kind words and for looking at Chapel Hill Memories,

Charly Mann

Charly Mann - Chapel Hill Memories

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by Charly Mann

There are several stories that attempt to explain the origin of the name Tar Heel. The one I believe is accurate has highly racist overtones, and has been supplanted by more benign explanations in the last eighty years. My source is Kemp Plummer Battle, one of Chapel Hill most beloved and influential residents, who was President of the University of North Carolina from 1876 to 1891. For the last thirty years of his life until 1919, he spent much of his time diligently recording the history of Chapel Hill and the University. His two volume History of the University of North Carolina remains the definite source of information about the first 120 years of the university. What follows are the recollections of Battle who was born on December 19,1831and graduated from UNC in the class of 1849.

Kemp Plumber Battle, President of the University of North Carolina for 15 years and author of the History of the University of North Carolina

At the beginning of the Civil War in January of 1862 a group of black slaves in Mississippi were playing a game in which a copper penny was placed in the middle of a ring. Each man had a chance to dance over to coin and try to pick it up with their foot. The man who could pick it up and then dance with it out of the circle got to keep the penny. An especially dark black man who was referred to as a "darkey" kept winning the penny and the crowd watching the game became suspicious. A man in the crowd shouted," Dat nigger has got tar on his heels!" The man's foot was inspected, and indeed he did has tar on his heels.

Racist writings and cartoons sometimes appeared in UNC publications like this one from the 1913 Yackey Yack until almost 1960

This story was widely reported by Southern newspapers and soon Virginia soldiers started calling North Carolina soldiers Tar Heels because they said North Carolina was best known for producing "tar, pitch, and turpentine" The North Carolina soldiers enjoyed the nickname and declared Virginia soldiers would run away in battle with the Yankees, but the North Carolina soldiers would not run because they had tar on their heels. From then on people from North Carolina has been known as Tar Heels.

A cartoon with racist undertones from the 1912 Tar Heel
 

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by Charly Mann

In 1958 UNC students who lived on or near campus had 3000 cars in Chapel Hill. Unfortunately there were nowhere near that many parking spaces on campus. Starting in 1958 all these students were required to park their cars in the Bell Tower Parking lot between 7 AM and 3 PM on weekdays and 7 AM to 1 PM on Saturday. Freshmen were not allowed to have cars, and sophomores could only if they had a "C" average. All student cars had to have a parking sticker on the front driver's side window. Any student who violated these rules could have their car privileges revoked. The problem was that the Bell Tower lot only had 500 spaces. It was built in 1957 for a cost of $75,000. Obviously there were 2,500 cars that students had to park off campus and that often meant in downtown. Parking on campus during these hours was reserved for faculty and staff, as well as any student who had to commute to campus. Students who were veterans or physically handicapped were exempt from these rules.

Downtown Chapel Hill in 1959 when almost everyone jaywalked across Franklin Street

Chapel Hill and the University both accurately projected town and university growth in the late 1950s for 1970 determining there would have to add an additional 6000 extra parking places to satisfy the town and campus needs by then. Less than half that many spaces were added.

Crowell Little Ford was located just before Eastgate in a large new building. They had recently moved from downtown where they were located at the NW corner of Columbia and Franklin Street. In these days east Franklin Street beyond the downtown historic district was called the Durham Road.

Chapel Hill police officer Eugene Cozart giving out one of the first parking tickets in Chapel Hill . In the background you can see Eubank's Drug Store then Chapel Hill's oldest business. Also visible is the NC Cafeteria where the food was truly mediocre. Next door is Lacock's Shoe Repair and Max Snipes' Barber Shop.

In October of 1958 metered parking came to Chapel Hill. There were then 405 parking spaces in town, almost all diagonal. The majority of the spaces had dual meters. Chapel Hill then had a police force of twenty officers, and one, patrolman Eugene Cozart, was assigned to issue meter violation tickets and collect money from the machines. The maximum parking time on the meters was two hours.

Until Belk-Leggett-Horton Department Store opened in Chapel Hill just west of the corner of West Franklin and Church Street in the late 1950s most Chapel Hillians  traveled to downtown Durham to do much of their shopping. The best department store in Durham was Ellis Stone which was founded in 1885, and would be akin to a Macy's today. Dollar Days was a huge three day sales event in February throughout downtown Chapel Hill during this time. Chapel Hill's biggest sale event was Hot Diggity Days which occurred for a week each July, and many of the deals rivaled today's early morning Black Friday specials.

This is the inside of the Bank of Chapel Hill on Franklin Street in 1958. The Bank of Chapel Hill was then the only bank in town. They also had a branch in Glen Lennox and Carrboro.

For the first time in its history residents of Chapel Hill were allowed to buy bottles of  liquor in 1959. In January voters of Orange County voted to go from "dry" to "wet". This meant hard liquor could be sold to those over the age of 21 at state owned ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Commission) Stores.  The last time Orange County had put this issue on the ballot was in September of 1938 and the vote was 1938 to 1496 against the sale of liquor. In 1959 5713 Orange County residents voted, and by a margin of 825 approved liquor sales. The margin of victory came from Chapel Hill voters who went 1834 for to 617 against approving ABC store sales.

Chapel Hill was truly a slow paced sleepy little town for much of its history. Until October of 1958 many businesses including all Barber Shops were closed on Wednesday afternoon. This is the announcement that forever ended that Wednesday tradition.

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by Susan Prothro Worley

The destination of choice for Chapel Hill kids in the 1960s was Franklin Street. I don't remember that area being referred to then as downtown. Whenever anyone I knew was headed that way, we said we were going "uptown," probably because that part of Franklin Street sits at the top of the hill that defines our town.

Friends enjoying a meal at Suttons Drug Store on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill

Franklin Street plays a central role in our memories of Chapel Hill just as it plays a central role in our town. It's Franklin Street that forms the backdrop for many of the things we remember best. Not only personal childhood experiences took place on Franklin Street - for me that would be going to the movies at the Carolina or Varsity, eating pizza at the Rat, browsing at the Intimate - but it's also the place we traditionally gather as a community, whether for the Beat Dook parade, street festivals, protest marches, or basketball celebrations.

Enjoying coffee and great conversation on the stone wall next to the UNC campus on the south side of Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill.

Looking back at a time we can never return to, it's natural to think of that past as a better era. When I was a child, there was much lamenting over the loss of our village atmosphere. A regular Chapel Hill Weekly series, Looking Back, included stories from past decades, highlighting the small town atmosphere of an earlier period. As much as I loved my hometown, from a young age I felt a sense of loss that Chapel Hill was no longer the special village it had been before I arrived. Along with that sense of loss, I felt some guilt because my family, having shown up in 1960, was part of the problem. It was because of newcomers like us that a formerly wooded area was carved into the developments of Coker Hills and Lake Forest. Without us, Eastgate Shopping Center may never have been built and Estes Hills Elementary School wouldn't have been necessary.

The face of a young girl strolling down Franklin Street near the Kidzu Museum

There I was though, along with my newly arrived neighbors and classmates, contributing to change and development but claiming Chapel Hill as our own just as generations before us had done.

At that time, Chapel Hill was a town where dogs roamed free and so did kids. Safety was not an issue we gave a lot of thought to. We biked and walked around town and campus without a sense of boundaries or fear.

Locally Grown Rooftop Music and Movies Series is held in downtown Chapel Hill on top of the Wallace Parking Deck during the summer.

When I think back to those childhood days uptown, it's easy to recall various experiences that might make the police blotter today. However, we didn't associate such episodes with a place or with a time period. We learned that scary things can happen in the world but, just because they sometimes happened on Franklin Street, that didn't mean Franklin Street was a threatening place to be.

Carolina blue eyes in a future Tar Heel scholar

Recently, a handful of Franklin Street merchants began expressing their frustrations about crime, street people, and the lack of parking downtown. It struck me as odd, first because it didn't match my reality of the vibrant place I visit. What was really puzzling was that it was coming from people who had every reason to promote a positive image of Franklin Street. It wasn't long before I started hearing the same rumblings from friends - not based on their experiences but on those complaints that were now being perceived as fact. It only takes a short time before rumors become conventional wisdom. And of course there are people who can come up with a negative story about an experience on Franklin Street...or any other street in America. Just as has been true in past times though, those random incidents don't define the place.

Michael Brown mural on the side of the NCNB building in downtown Chapel Hill

We warmly remember past characters of Franklin Street, chuckling at their eccentricities. Is it possible that some of the so-called street people sitting on a bench uptown could be the Franklin Street characters of today? The only way to find out is to get to know them.

The diversity of life in downtown Chapel Hill

Today many of the places and people we recall from our own childhoods on Franklin Street are gone. Just as people in the 60s lamented the loss of the village, it's easy for us in 2010 to dwell on the things we miss from our own pasts. There is a whole new generation of children though, and a new crop of students, and newcomers to town, and they are creating memories of their own. They may enjoy the view from Top of the Hill, marvel at Michael Brown's murals, check out the caricatures of local celebrities at Spanky's, or take their children to Kidzu Museum.

Enjoying Ben & Jerry Ice Cream on West Franklin street in Chapel Hill

For newcomers and oldtimers alike, there are plenty of merchants to counter the negativity of those whose glass is perennially half empty. Locally owned, thriving Franklin Street businesses, places like Med Deli, Chapel Hill Sportswear, The Varsity, and Chapel Hill Comics, are too busy serving happy customers to spend their time complaining.

Two young people on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill

A site like chapelhillmemories is a draw for those of us who remember the good old days. But it takes nothing away from yesterday's creaky wood floors at the Intimate Book Store to acknowledge the fun of identifying North Carolina musicians pictured on the walls of today's Pepper's Pizza. The joys of a small town have given way to the vibrancy of a small city. Missing the former shouldn't stop us from embracing the latter. If we do, we miss out on the very place that defines our community, uptown Chapel Hill.

Susan Prothro Worley has been the personification of Chapel Hill  for the last five decades. She eats and breathes  the place, and Carolina blue blood runs through her veins. She loves the history of the town, and adores its present. There is very little she does not like about Chapel Hill. She is the Executive Director of Orange County's Volunteers for Youth.

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by Charly Mann

In 1906, forty years after the Civil War ended, the students of the University of North Carolina paid tribute to the hundreds of former students who gave their lives in what they termed the "Lost Cause" in the following statement:

We, the younger generation of Southern men, pledge those gallant men who fought with Jackson and Lee, alumni of our beloved U.N.C. in the name of the Lord God of Hosts, that we shall never forget those noble teachers in grey, our monitors in every high holy lesson for all ages that are to be.

$50 in North Carolina Confederate Money

Today many of us would like to forget UNC's support and huge contribution to the Confederacy. In the beginning of the war North Carolina was the most reluctant of the Southern states to leave the Union. Most of North Carolina's political leaders at the time of secession were UNC graduates, and they had much more national sentiment than their counterparts in the rest of the South. Most white people in North Carolina did not own slaves and were against slavery. More than a decade before, the majority of UNC students had agreed that slavery should be abolished. In the 1832 UNC commencement address, Judge William Gaston said that slavery was holding back the progress of the state and stated:

Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is Slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement. It stifles industry and represses enterprise — it is fatal to economy and providence--it discourages skill — impairs our strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountain head. How this evil is to be encountered, how subdued, is indeed a difficult and delicate enquiry, which this is not the time to examine, nor the occasion to discuss. I felt, however, that I could not discharge my duty, without referring to this subject, as one which ought to engage the prudence moderation and firmness of those who, sooner or later, must act decisively upon it.

James Allen Wright (1836-1862) was a captain in the Confederate Army. He was killed at the battle of Mechanicsville in June 1862.

Two former UNC students, William A. Graham, and William P. Mangum were among the most powerful politicians in North Carolina at the start of the Civil War and argued strongly to stay with the Union. Magnum even declared, "If I could coin my heart into gold, and it was lawful in the sight of Heaven, I would pray God give me the firmness to do it, to save the Union from the fearful, the dreadful shock which I verily believe impends."

North Carolina was also a state that was not heavily dependent on slavery for its economic well being. The preservation and extension of slavery into newly formed states was never an important issue in North Carolina politics. In February of 1961 when other Southern states began seceding North Carolina refused to secede.

Unfortunately Mangum's fears were justified, and when Abraham Lincoln issued a call for troops to put an end to the secession in April 1961, Governor John Ellis, also a UNC graduate, declared to the President, "You can get no troops from North Carolina." Zebulon Vance, another UNC graduate, who became a leader in the Confederate Army and for whom Vance Hall on the UNC campus is named, spoke for the majority of North Carolinians when he said: "If war must come, I prefer to be with my own people. If we must shed blood, I prefer to shed Northern rather than Southern blood." So when war did come to the South most former and current UNC students either fought for or served in positions of civil service for the Confederacy.

Bryan Grimes graduated from UNC in 1848. He was a major general in the Confederate Army

During the Civil War North Carolina had three Confederate governors, all UNC graduates. In the Congress of the Confederate States fourteen of its members were North Carolina alumni. Of all the living alumni and students of UNC from 1837 to 1865, more than 40% served in the Confederate Army. Among the officers in the Confederate Army with UNC degrees there was one lieutenant general, one major general, thirteen brigadier generals, 50 colonels, 28 lieutenant colonels, forty majors, forty-six adjutants, 71 surgeons, 251 captains, and 38 non-commissioned officers. To put these numbers in perspective this was from a total of 2200 men who had attended UNC between 1837 and 1861. No other non-military university gave such a high percent of its men to the war effort.

James Barr Andrews, UNC class of 1854, was a captain in the Confederate Army and died at the battle in Richmond on July 23, 1863

Among the distinguished causalities were Lieutenant I.M. Royster, class of 1860, who died leading his men at a charge at Gettysburg while singing "Dixie" with his men. Two days later, Colonel Issac E. Avery was mortally wounded on the third day of fighting at Gettysburg. He lived just long enough to write this note on an envelope on the battlefield, "Tell my father I died with my face to the foe."

Two of the four tablets on the wall of Memorial Hall listing UNC students who were killed in the Civil War

In the fighting UNC class of 1839, C.M. Avery, commanded a regiment at the battle of Chancellorsville in which 41% of his men were killed. 1848 graduate George B. Anderson was also a regiment commander and lost 54% of his men at Seven Pines, and 1844 alumnus R.H. Cowan lost 56% of the troops he commanded during the Seven Day's battle. Finally it was former UNC students Z.B. Vance and Harry K. Burgwyn who led Pettigrew's Brigade in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. When the charge began they had 820 men. A few minutes later only 102 were still alive. To put this in perspective the 708 men killed in this one part of this great battle exceeded the total student enrollment at UNC in any year before the Civil War and well into the early 20th century. All the men these men commanded were from North Carolina.

Final two of the four tablets listing students who attended UNC and were killed in the Civil War 

In terms of UNC deaths the records show that at the first battle of Manassas there were four UNC deaths, at the Battle of Shiloh five, at Malvern Hill fourteen, at Sharpsburg nine, at Fredericksburg eight, at Chickamauga seven, the battle of the Wilderness six, Spotsylvania five, and in Atlanta nine. All told 312 men who attended UNC died in the Civil War.

The following two songs are an addendum to this article. The first is a version of Dixie performed much like it would have been during the Civil War. Next is a rare recording of James Taylor singing Hard Times, a song Stephen Foster wrote in 1854, and popular in the South in the 1860s and 70s because of the misery brought on from the Civil War.

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by Charly Mann

In 1818 the University of North Carolina consisted of the following four buildings, Main Building (now known as South Building), Steward's Hall, East Building (now known as Old East), and Person Hall. Old East was an all purpose building in those days that housed 56 students in 14 small rooms, as well as having several classrooms. The Main Building was just four years old then, and had dorm rooms upstairs and most of the school's classrooms downstairs. The building looked far different then. It was not until 1861 that the small dome was added to the top of the building. The great entrance with the wide doorway was constructed in 1897, and the large porch supported by Roman columns was not added to the south side until 1927.

Map of Chapel Hill, 1818 - View large size

To the left of the Main building was Steward's Hall, a wooden building of 36 by 36 feet which contained four rooms. Two were for students to live in, one was a campus dining area, and the other was a kitchen with a brick floor. By 1818 the University no longer operated this building and it had become a private boarding house. The building was torn down in 1848 and replaced by Smith Hall (which is now the Playmaker's Theater).

Main Building at UNC, now known as South Building.  Upstairs were dorm rooms and downstairs were classrooms

Person Hall is the second oldest building on the UNC campus. It was completed in 1798, and was the site of the University's first graduation in July of that year. In those days students and townspeople simply referred to it as the Chapel. It was then the only church in town, and students were required to attended religious services there every day.

UNC's Person Hall, The UNC Chapel which all students were required to attend daily

First painting of East Building (now called Old East) from 1797

The second oldest home in Chapel Hill today is the Puckett house built in 1796 by the widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Puckett, and stands at 501 East Franklin Street. The Widow Puckett, as she was known, was a very enterprising woman. She rented several rooms in her house to students, as well as offering the best home cooked meals in town. In addition she provided a laundry service for students. Across the street from the Puckett house is Chapel Hill's oldest home built for William Hooper, a university professor. It is located at 504 E. Franklin St., and was recently the home of the great band leader and movie star Kay Kyser.

As you look at this map you can see that in 1818 Chapel Hill only had about a dozen houses and two stores, Trice's and Tom Taylor's store. You can now follow William D. Moseley walking through Chapel Hill in those days in a letter he wrote many years later to UNC professor Elisa Mitchell on  August 15, 1853. 

I would take a stroll through the village, beginning at Nunn's and going eastwardly down the Main Street, first by Mrs. Mitchell's on the right; Trice's store on the left; then Major Henderson's, James Hogg's immediately opposite; then Tom Taylor's store; then, on the left, Edmund Pitt's dwelling, then Tom Taylor's house, then (East of the Raleigh road) President Caldwell's , then Mr. Hooper's; immediately opposite to the latter was Mrs. Puckett's. This was then the principal street. South from Mrs. Nunn's Hotel was William Barbee's house, and then your house (Elisa Mitchell's). Then west was Panell's and Watson's homes. These I believe were at that time the houses composing the village; with two college buildings; and Person Hall, Chapel.

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by Stanley Peele

Back in the 1940's, I was a paperboy; and delivered the Durham-Sun in the Westwood area. In those days, the school in Chapel Hill was where University Square is now. After school was over, I would ride my bike over to the Town Hall, which is now the community shelter.

I would find my bale of newspapers and loosen the wire binding. This was long before we had plastic bags, so I would fold the papers so they could be thrown, stuff them in my canvas bag, put the bag over my shoulder, and pedal off to Vance St. to start the route.

How the papers were delivered depended on the customers. If the customers were handicapped, I would put the paper behind the screen door, or inside the house. However, most of the papers were tossed from my bike as I pedaled. Usually my aim was good, but sometimes it was not. If I missed, and was in a hurry, I would not always go back and put the paper on the porch.

Most of the customers were kindly and charitable people; but one, who I will call "Mr. Smith," who lived on Old Pittsboro Rd., was not. If a newspaper got wet, or missed his porch, even slightly, he would not pay.

I kept a weekly account of money spent and received, and at the end of each week I would calculate the profit for that week. I remember one week, going from house to house, collecting the money for that week.

When I came to Mr. Smith’s house, he informed me that I had missed his porch one day that week. Further, he said he would not pay me anything for that week; in order to "teach me a lesson."

I got very angry. I remember it just as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. My face felt like it was burning.

When I finished collecting payments, I went back home to calculate the profit for that week. To may amazement, I found the profit to be one cent. One cent!! One cent for a week’s work! My anger mounted up threefold. Mr. Smith had stolen my week’s profit.

Profit for a week for Chapel Hill paperboy Stanley Peele

The passing of time can sometimes change our point of view. Now, after many years of reflection, I would like to thank Mr. Smith. He taught me many things. He taught me more than he knew.

He helped teach me the value of money, the value of having integrity in the job place, the lesson of doing a job right.  He helped teach me patience. Was my time so valuable that I could not go back and put the newspaper where it should be? It has taken me many years to learn these lessons, but he helped.

He also taught me another lesson that has burned brightly for all these years. He taught me that I should never, never treat another human being as he treated me.

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by Charly Mann

The first television set in Chapel Hill was installed at the Martin Ivey Cafe on Main Street in Carrboro on September 27, 1949. The TV was a Philco and Chapel Hillians were amazed that much of the programming could be seen the same second it was happening. The biggest attraction in the restaurant was Tuesday night when the Arthur Godfrey Show was on. Televisions became commercially available in Chapel Hill during the summer of 1949 at Ogburn's Furniture store, but only a handful were sold. At that time only one station in Charlotte was broadcasting television in North Carolina, so the reception in Chapel Hill was exceptionally poor. By late September of that year WFMY in Greensboro began broadcasting television with a very weak signal, which meant that with a large antenna you could get a clear picture some of the time.

First store to sell televisions in Chapel Hill Ogburn Furniture, and their first ad for this new product, September 1950.

When people did watch television it was a family event. People only had one set which was in their living room, and it was most often used on Sunday night for no more than an hour. People did not eat meals or anything else in front of it. Once or twice a year, especially on New Year's day our fathers would get together with some of their friends and share a couple of beers while they watched one or more of the four bowl games then played every year – the Orange, Rose, Cotton, and Sugar Bowl.

Families ate dinner in a dinning room or area in the kitchen in Chapel Hill in the 1950's that did not contain a TV.

The main difference between life in Chapel Hill in the 1950s and 60s and now is time. In those days almost everyone had plenty of time, and now hardly anyone does. It was not that time moved slowly then, or we had less to do, it is simply we used time much better then.

Today the average person in Chapel Hill will spend almost 14 years of their life watching television. In the 1950s and 60s the quality of the programming for the most part was better than today, but we only occasionally watched it. I do not recall a single show that my family watched on a regular basis, except for the national news which was then only 15 minutes on CBS, and hosted by Douglas Edwards. Even in 1969, when I was 19 and owned a very small portable b/w television, the only time I recall using it was when a group of people came over to my apartment to watch the first landing of a man on the moon that July.

Johnson-Strowd-Ward furniture store began selling televisions in December of 1950

When I was about seven, in 1957, I remember an older friend of my family, Minnie Garner who lived on North Street, saying she was afraid TV viewing would become an addictive habit for most people, but I could not see that ever happening. By 1959 I heard a conversation at Max Snipes' Barber Shop on Franklin Street about the ill effects of television. Max and a customer were discussing how many of the people they knew were reading less and the social circle of family and friends that once gathered to talk, read, and play games in Chapel Hill's living rooms in the evenings had become a circle of spectators.

The art of conversation has significantly declined in Chapel Hill in the last 50 years, primarily due to television. There were many great storytellers in town in the 1950s and 60s, and most adults could easily express their ideas and beliefs so that even a child like me could understand them.

Wednesday night television for Chapel Hill September 1961

We need to remember that time is more valuable than money. We are squandering it today with our three screens - television, computers, and cell phones. Time cannot be replaced and using it well is our best investment and greatest asset for happiness.

Personal Disclosure: I played a part in the decline of quality time in Chapel Hill. In 1979 I co-founded North American Video with my friend Gary Messenger. It was the first, and for at least a decade, the dominant video rental chain in the Triangle. It became a huge success under the leadership of Gary and his brilliant wife, yet I regret that my concept accelerated Chapel Hill's addiction to television and passive entertainment.

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by Charly Mann

Chapel Hill was first an idea, then a place, and for more than two centuries a community of incredible people. The idea of Chapel Hill originated in North Carolina’s 1776 constitution which called for the establishment of a state university. If it had not been for the distraction of the Revolutionary War a university would have been founded much earlier. On December 11, 1789, soon after North Carolina agreed to join The United States of America, a charter was granted by the state to found the university.

On August 1, 1792 a commission convened in Hillsborough to select a location for the university. They proceeded to draw a circle on map in the central part of the state that was thirty miles in diameter, and agreed that the new school would be located within that area. Almost in the center of that circle was a point called Cyprett's Bridge on the road from Hillsborough to Pittsboro. A group of landowners near that spot promoted an area a few miles south as the site for the new university, agreeing to give the state 1,386 acres of land for its use if it were selected. The commission accepted and on a summit 512 feet above sea level, then known only by a surveyor's designation on a map as Point Prospect, the cornerstone for the University of North Carolina was laid on October 12, 1793. The same day, 30 four acre lots were auctioned off around the University site for prospective inhabitants of a village that would support the new school. All but eight of those the lots were sold that day.

William R. Davie laying the cornerstone of Old East, the first state university building in the United States, on October 12, 1793. When Chapel Hill and the University were deserted from 1871 to 1874 the cornerstone was vandalized and its commemorative plate was stolen. In 1916 it was found in a scrapheap in Tennessee.

The town took its name from an abandoned Anglican chapel located at the highest point of the hill where the university was to be located. This is now the location of the Carolina Inn. Even twenty-five years after the University opened, what would become Chapel Hill had only 13 houses and a couple of stores. Chapel Hill did not officially become an incorporated town until 1850.

Hinton James walked 170 miles from Wilmington to Chapel Hill arriving on February 12, 1795 to become the University’s first student. Along the way he faced many obstacles including a brutally cold winter, many impassible roads, and several rivers and creeks that were very difficult to get across. His feet were so sore after his arrival that he stayed in bed for several days to recover. Fortunately there was not much to do at UNC yet, and it would be two more weeks before any more students showed up for classes.

Before the Civil War the only buildings on the campus were South Building, Gerrard Hall, Smith Hall (now the Playmaker's Theater), Pearson Hall, and the dormitories Old East, Old West, New East, and New West. Even though most students left to fight in the Confederate Army during the war, the University stayed open until the implementation of Reconstruction in 1868. The University closed in 1870 and South Building became a stable for cows and horses. Throughout the campus windows were shattered and plaster fallen from decaying walls covered the floors. Most of the magnificent oak trees on campus died, and cows and pigs roamed unattended through the campus and the abandoned town of Chapel Hill.

The University of North Carolina stays open, but most students march off  in 1861 past South Building to fight for Confederate Army during the Civil War

It was not a man, but a woman, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, who was responsible for the University's reopening. She single handily harangued the state government through articles in the then leading newspaper in the state, The Raleigh Sentinel, to appropriate the funds to re-open the university. When the University resumed operations in 1876 Chapel Hill had four general stores, three blacksmith shops, three woodworking shops, two drugstores and several shoemakers. Three years later in 1879 the town elected its first mayor. In 1897 the first woman student was admitted to UNC. In 1900 Carolina enrollment stood at 512, with 35 faculty members.

Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina become a ghost town when University of North Carolina is closed from 1871 to 1875

The 1920s were boom years for Chapel Hill. Many new restaurants and stores opened along Franklin Street, several large buildings were added to the University campus, and Kenan Stadium was built. The University also announced plans to construct the Bell Tower and Graham Memorial.

The Depression stuck a severe blow to Chapel Hill. Many merchants and restaurants closed, and even the Pickwick movie theater shut down. The town was full of beggars, and churches and community organizations offering meals and clothing always had long lines. Many students had trouble paying their tuition and tried to find any work they could to avoid having to give up college. The Carolina Coffee Shop even gave free meals to students who had no money, and The University let students who could not afford to pay for dorm rooms live in Swain Dining Hall for $25 a semester.

Re-opening of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, September 1875

World War II lifted Chapel Hill out of the Depression and the town began to prosper as never before when the vets returned to the University on the GI Bill. In 1949 the Schools of Dentistry and Nursing began operation. Also that year the most magnificent building yet constructed on campus, The Morehead Planetarium, was opened. Finally, in 1952 North Carolina Memorial Hospital opened.

Since its founding Chapel Hill has grown from a small village to a small city. As late as 1880 Chapel Hill had less than 1,000 residents, including students. By 1950 the town's population had increased to 9,177 (again including students). Since 1990 it has grown from 37,596 to 56,000 today (2009).

The people have changed a lot too. While Chapel Hill's population has always been socially and politically progressive, as a community they did not unify for social change until May 6, 1969, when Howard Lee was elected the first black mayor of a predominantly white southern town. During the 1950s and 1960s when intergration and opposition to the war in Vietnam were major issues, very few prominent Chapel Hill citizens spoke out. Today Chapel Hill along with Madison, Wisconsin and Berkeley, California is one of the most liberal communities in the United States.

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by Charly Mann

On June 25th 1963, the N.C. General Assembly enacted a law entitled An Act to Regulate Visiting Speakers at State Supported Colleges and Universities. Leading conservatives in the state led by Jesse Helms, who was then doing a nightly commentary on WRAL TV news, opposed left-wing thinkers being allowed to speak and promote their ideology on the UNC campus. The law had been provoked because Milton Rosen, the head of a group called Progressive Labor that was advocating civil rights for blacks but was also supportive of the then radical Maoist communists; spoke on the Chapel Hill campus in 1962. The law prohibited communists, people who advocated the overthrow of the United States government, and anyone who had ever invoked the Fifth Amendment in a hearing that was looking into Communism or subversive behavior, from speaking on the UNC campus.

Jesse Helms was the news director at WRAL in Raleigh and gave nightly editorials during the news from 1960 to 1972. He was the leading proponent of the Speaker Ban

Many UNC students and professors opposed the law on the grounds that it violated the “free-speech” provision of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. It was also widely believed by many in Chapel Hill that the real aim of the law was to prevent leading civil rights leaders who advocated demonstrations, boycotts and sit-ins as a means to end to segregation from coming to UNC. Many on the right in the state believed communist and other left-wing groups were actively trying to infiltrate the University.

The biggest test of the ban came on March 9, 1966 when a group of UNC students invited Herbert Aptheker, a member of the communist party, and Frank Wilkinson a radical civil rights advocate to speak at UNC. Because of the ban the two were denied permission to speak on campus, and in and act of defiance they spoke to a crowd of almost 3000 students just over the stone wall between Graham Memorial and the Battle, Vance, and Pettigrew buildings on Franklin Street that separated UNC from downtown. Neither of these men were particularly inspiring speakers, and the majority of the crowd was there as either an act of protest to the Speaker Ban Law or curiosity.

Herbert Aptheker was a Marxist who had previously spoken at UNC in the 1950's. In 1966 he had to speak over a wall because of the Speaker Ban

On February 19, 1968, the federal court in Greensboro said The Speaker Ban law was invalid because it was too vague. The legislature did not attempt to revise the law, and ever since there has been no restriction on who can speak at UNC, though it is now not unusal for consevative speakers to get shouted down when they try to speak on campus. Recently both former congressman Tom Tancredo, and six-term Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode had to end their speeches because of the shouts of protestors.

Frank Wilkinson speaks just outside UNC campus over a wall in Chapel Hill in 1966 during Speaker Ban

For those who think Jesse Helms and North Carolina were particularly reactionary in these days, I need to remind you that in 1960 in California, a liberal governor and legislature enacted an even more restrictive speaker ban aimed at the University California at Berkeley. It was the California precedent and law on which North Carolina, three years later, would model its own Speaker Ban law. The California law was enforced for five years until January of 1965. 

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by Charly Mann

Throughout much of its history Chapel Hill has prided itself for its high moral standards, but in the mid 1930's the town was plagued by a flagrant violation of common decency by a large number of its citizens. People who visited Chapel Hill were often shocked to see children of both sexes and young men with no clothing on above the waist in the summers. By 1936, this public lewdness had spread to both men and women who were often seen wearing short pants on the streets of town.

 
We all know that children who start off young wearing short pants are likely to turn to a life of drugs and crime as adults

In 1937, Mrs. R. B. Lawson, wife of the man who ran the UNC gymnasium, began a crusade to end this indecent behavior with a proposal that the town ban the wearing of short pants in public. The town council questioned Mrs. Lawson about at what age the ban should be enforced, and she was adamant that it be applied to anyone of school age and older. The council worried about this provision because Chapel Hill courts then could only try cases for those 16 years and older and all minor aged lawbreakers had to go to Hillsboro to receive their punishment.

Girls with no shame use to go out in public and display their legs to everyone in town

Mrs. Lawson cajoled the town officials to not allow the streets of Chapel Hill to be used for walking sunbathing. The town finally agreed to have police officers warn all adults they saw wearing shorts that this was not considered proper attire.
 

Unfortunately, displays of indecent behavior like this are becoming more common in Chapel Hill

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Life in Chapel Hill in the late 1940's and early 1950's was simple. In most ways it was the best time to live in Chapel Hill. In the photo below from the middle of August 1952 Chapel Hill High School freshmen Richard Gunter, Gene Smith and Clyde Campbell drink fountain Cokes between two-a-days training for the Chapel Hill High School football team. The Cokes were then 5 cents. They are sitting on the grass in front of the "new" auditorium at Chapel Hill High School on West Franklin Street and now the site of University Square Plaza.

Friends for Life, left to right, Richard Gunter, Gene Smith, and Clyde Campbell

These three young men began a lifelong friendship the year this picture was taken. Richard had moved to Chapel Hill in the fifth grade, but had known Gene since Richard's grandfather started bringing him to town at age 9 to go to the Western movies on Saturdays. Richard recalls that on those Saturdays he took 15 cents to town, paid 5 cents for a bag of jellybeans from Rose's 5 & 10 Cent Store and then went to see the movie at the Varsity Theater for 9 cents. In the afternoon after the movie Richard sold newspapers around town for a nickle, and was allowed to keep 2.5 cents from each sale. He did this until he sold six papers and had made 15 cents. That was all the he needed for town the following Saturday. After that he would stop by Danziger's Candy Shop where Mrs. Danziger would give him a piece of pumpernickel bread as a snack. Richard said it was as good as chocolate cake.

Richard says the legendary Cat Baby, George Canada, was also selling papers at that time. Cat Baby was in Richard's Chapel Hill High School graduating class of 1956, though he was about 21 by then.

This is George (Cat Baby) Canada on top of Leon Ivey at Bill Albans Service Station in downtown Chapel Hill in 1953. Among the onlookers at the fight are left to right Robby Ross, Tommy Goodrich, Arnold Smith, Bobby Thompson, Billy Thompson, Roy Jones, Floyd Pittard, Gene Cate, Billy Wayne Andrews, Johnny Watts, (first name unknown) Womble, unknown, and John Hall. I have been told that Ivey probably deserved getting a little banged-up that day.

Clyde Campbell moved from Newton-Conover to Chapel Hill during the summer of 1952. The three friends went on to co-captain the Chapel Hill High School football team their senior year.

The three friends in 1955 as co-captains of the Chapel Hill High School football team. They are in same order as top photo.

After graduating from Chapel Hill High School in 1956 the three men went their separate ways for a while. Gene and Richard joined the United States Air Force, while Clyde stayed in town to graduate from the University of North Carolina before going into the Marine Corps. Gene returned to Chapel Hill to enter the insurance business and remained in Chapel Hill. Richard came back to go to UNC and graduate with a math degree before beginning a career as an actuary, living as far away as Texas. He traveled to 41 states in his career as a presenter for insurance industry marketing seminars. Clyde began a career with IBM when he returned from service, and held jobs for the company in Boulder, San Diego and Austin, before finally retiring to New Canaan, Connecticut. As with most men, there was little communication while they were settling down, having families and building their careers but whenever one came back to Chapel Hill, visiting family or passing through, he could get caught up because Gene stayed abreast of the goings on in town.

Gene was still away in the service when Richard got married, but Clyde was there to be best man. Richard met his wife Ka (pronounced "Kay") when they were in the fifth grade in Chapel Hill in 1949. They got married 10 years later in her home on Westwood Drive. Richard was at Clyde's wedding a few years later. Gene got married while Richard and Clyde were away in the service. They do manage to get together at class reunions and just recently, Gene and Clyde attended Richard and Ka's 50th wedding anniversary. Richard and Gene both live in Chapel Hill now so they see each other frequently. The phone lines stay hot between Chapel Hill and Connecticut as Richard and Clyde have been known to be connected on the phone during entire televised Carolina basketball games.

During the time Richard, Gene, and Clyde were at Chapel Hill High School "The REC" was where high school aged students congregated on the weekends. It had been a Methodist Church and was converted as a place for teenagers to have parties and events. Every Friday night there was a "sock hop" dance at The REC. It was managed by Sarah Umstead, who was from an old Chapel Hill family. It was torn down more than forty years ago.

This is The REC where Chapel Hill teenagers got together for parties and dances in the 1950's 

Photos for this article provided by Richard Gunter and Ruth Vickers

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by Charly Mann

While Chapel Hill has a reputation for being a progressive and liberal place, it was not long ago when slaves were a fundamental part of the town and University. Many of the town's building including The Chapel of the Cross were built with slave labor. Also many students had their personal slaves with them while attending the University.

Twenty-Dollar Reward. 1839

Ran off from the university, on the night of the 20th instant, a negro man by the names of JAMES, who has for the last four years attended at Chapel Hill in the capacity of a college servant. He is of dark complexion, in stature five feet six or eight inches high, and compactly constructed; speaks quick and with ease, and has the habit of shaking his head in conversation. He is of doubtless well dressed, and has a considerable quantity of clothing. He is presumed that he will make for Norfolk or Richmond with the view of taking passage for some of the free states, or of going on and associating himself with the Colonization Society. It is supposed that he has with him a horse of the following description: a sorrel roan, four feet six or seven inches high, hind feet white, with a very long tail, which where it joins the body it white of flax colour. A premium of twenty dollars will be given for the apprehension of said slave. The subscriber would request any one who may apprehend the boy to direct their communication to Chapel Hill.

In 1790 there were 2060 slaves living in and around Chapel Hill. By 1860 fully one third of the population of Orange County were slaves. In Chapel Hill most slaves did household work or labored in carpentry and construction. The University also had slaves as cooks and maintenance workers.

On the positive side, almost a quarter of a century before the Civil War, on October 22, 1834, the largest student group at UNC, the Dialectic Society, said that slavery should be abolished. Three years later, on March 11, 1937, they even proclaimed that the slave-holding states of the South should not secede from the Union.

A fascinating fact of North Carolina history is that even when slavery was legal there was a sizable free black population in the state. More than 20,000 of the free blacks even had the right to vote until 1835.

UNC Students in 1876 with black servant sitting in front

By 1876 slavery was illegal. Students now had "Negro servants" who did exactly the same work as student slaves had done before the Civil War.

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by Charly Mann

On October 12th, 1961 President John F. Kennedy came to Chapel Hill to receive an honorary degree and make a speech at Kenan Stadium. I had been an admirer of the President since 1960, when I was in the fifth grade, and he responded to a letter I sent to him about protecting Martin Luther King. For some reason on this day I worried about his safety in the motorcade he would be traveling in up Raleigh Road to get to Kenan Stadium. I knew the hilly dense woods that overlooked much of this route because they were near my house on Greenwood Road, and I hiked through them several times a week. I sensed someone could easily find places to conceal themselves in this area to take a shot at the President. Luckily nothing happened, but decades later I learned from this audio interview (see player at bottom of this article) with the then President of the University, Bill Friday, that the Secret Service had many threats on the President's life to worry about when he came to Chapel Hill.

I got up very early on the day of the speech to get good seats for it, and enjoyed seeing the President, and our equally charismatic then governor Terry Sanford, who introduced him. Luther Hodges, a long-time Chapel Hill resident and previous governor, was also there. He was then Kennedy's Secretary of Commerce.

Three years later there was a memorial for President Kennedy at Kenan Stadium, featuring Ted Kennedy and other members of the Kennedy family, which I also attended.

Following is the text of President Kennedy's Speech that day.

Mr. Chancellor, Governor Sanford, members of the faculty, ladies and gentlemen:

I am honored today to be admitted to the fellowship of this ancient and distinguished university, and I am pleased to receive in the short space of 1 or 2 minutes the honor for which you spend over 4 years of your lives. But whether the degree be honorary or earned, it is a proud symbol of this university and this State. North Carolina has long been identified with enlightened and progressive leaders and people, and I can think of no more important reason for that reputation than this university, which year after year has sent educated men and women who have had a recognition of their public responsibility as well as in their private interests.

Distinguished Presidents like President Graham and Gray, distinguished leaders like the Secretary of Commerce, Governor Hodges, distinguished members of the congressional delegation, carry out a tradition which stretches back to the beginning of this school, and that is that the graduate of this university is a man of his Nation as well as a man of his time. And it is my hope, in a changing world, when untold possibilities lie before North Carolina, and indeed the entire South and country, that this university will still hew to the old line of the responsibility that its graduates owe to the community at large--that in your time, too, you will be willing to give to the State and country a portion of your lives and all of your knowledge and all of your loyalty.

I want to emphasize, in the great concentration which we now place upon scientists and engineers, how much we still need the men and women educated in the liberal traditions, willing to take the long look, undisturbed by prejudices and slogans of the moment, who attempt to make an honest judgment on difficult events. This university has a more important function today than ever before, and therefore I am proud as President of the United States, and as a graduate of a small land grant college in Massachusetts, Harvard University, to come to this center of education.

Those of you who regard my profession of political life with some disdain should remember that it made it possible for me to move from being an obscure lieutenant in the United States Navy to Commander-in-Chief in 14 years, with very little technical competence. But more than that, I hope that you will realize that from the beginning of this country, and especially in North Carolina, there has been the closest link between educated men and women and politics and government. And also to remember that our nation's first great leaders were also our first great scholars.

A contemporary described Thomas Jefferson as "a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance the minuet, and play the violin." John Quincy Adams, after being summarily dismissed by the Massachusetts Legislature from the United States Senate for supporting Thomas Jefferson, could then become Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University, and then become a great Secretary of State.
And Senator Daniel Webster could stroll down the corridors of the Congress a few steps, after making some of the greatest speeches in the history of this country, and dominate the Supreme Court as the foremost lawyer of his day.

 This versatility, this vitality, this intellectual energy, put to the service of our country, represents our great resource in these difficult days. I would urge you, therefore, regardless of your specialty, and regardless of your chosen field or occupation, and regardless of whether you bear office or not, that you recognize the contribution which you can make as educated men and women to intellectual and political leadership in these difficult days, when the problems are infinitely more complicated and come with increasing speed, with increasing significance, in our lives than they were a century ago when so many gifted men dominated our political life. The United States Senate had more able men serving in it, from the period of 1830 to 1850, than probably any time in our history, and yet they dealt with three or four problems which they had dealt with for over a generation.

Now they come day by day, from all parts of the world. Even the experts find themselves confused, and therefore in a free society such as this, where the people must make an educated judgment, they depend upon those of you who have had the advantage of the scholar's education.I ask you to give to the service of our country the critical faculties which society has helped develop in you here. I ask you to decide, as Goethe put it, "whether you will be an anvil or a hammer," whether you will give the United States, in which you were reared and educated, the broadest possible benefits of that education.

It's not enough to lend your talents to deploring present solutions. Most educated men and women on occasions prefer to discuss what is wrong, rather than to suggest alternative courses of action. But, "would you have counted him a friend of ancient Greece," as George William Curtis asked a body of educators a century ago, "would you have counted him a friend of ancient Greece who quietly discussed the theory of patriotism on that hot summer day through whose hopeless and immortal hours Leonidas and the three hundred stood at Thermopylae for liberty? Was John Milton to conjugate Greek verbs in his library when the liberty of Englishmen was imperiled?"

This is a great institution with a great tradition and with devoted alumni, and with the support of the people of this State. Its establishment and continued functioning, like that of all great universities, has required great sacrifice by the people of North Carolina. I cannot believe that all of this is undertaken merely to give this school's graduates an economic advantage in the lifestruggle.

"A university," said Professor Woodrow Wilson, "should be an organ of memory for the State, for the transmission of its best traditions." And Prince Bismarck was even more specific. "One third of the students of German universities," he once said, "'broke down from over-work, another third broke down from dissipation, and the other third ruled Germany." I leave it to each of you to decide in which category you will fall.

I do not suggest that our political and public life should be turned over to college trained experts, nor would I give this university a seat in the Congress, as William and Mary was once represented in the Virginia House of Burgesses, nor would I adopt from the Belgian constitution a provision giving three votes instead of one to college graduates--at least not until more Democrats go to college. But I do hope that you join us.

Letter I received from John F Kennedy about a year before this speech

This university produces trained men and women, and what this country needs are those who look, as the motto of your State says, at things as they are and not at things as they seem to be. For this meeting is held at an extraordinary time. Angola and Algeria, Brazil and Bizerte, Syria and South Viet-Nam, Korea or Kuwait, the Dominican Republic, Berlin, the United Nations itself--all problems which 20 years ago we could not even dream of.

Our task in this country is to do our best, to serve our Nation's interest as we see 'it, and not to be swayed from our course by the faint-hearted or the unknowing, or the threats of those who would make themselves our foes. This is not a simple task in a democracy. We cannot open all our books in advance to an adversary who operates in the night, the decisions we make, the weapons we possess, the bargains we will accept--nor can we always see reflected overnight the success or failure of the actions that we may take.

In times past, a simple slogan described our policy: "Fifty-four-forty or fight." "To make the world safe for democracy." "No entangling alliances." But the times, issues, and the weapons, all have changed--and complicate and endanger our lives. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that the policies of the United States, stretching as they do world-wide, under varying and different conditions, can be encompassed in one slogan or one adjective, hard or soft or otherwise-or to believe that we shall soon meet total victory or total defeat.

This is the program from the John F. Kennedy tribute at Kenan Stadium on May 17, 1964

Peace and freedom do not come cheap, and we are destined, all of us here today, to live out most if not all of our lives in uncertainty and challenge and peril. Our policy must therefore blend whatever degree of firmness and flexibility which is necessary to protect our vital interests, by peaceful means if possible, by resolute action if necessary. There is, of course, no place in America where reason and firmness are more clearly pointed out than here in North Carolina. All Americans can profit from what happened in this State a century ago. It was this State, firmly fixed in the traditions of the South, which sought a way of reason in a troubled and dangerous world. Yet when the War came, North Carolina provided a fourth of all of the Confederate soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice in those years. And it won the right to the slogan, "First at Bethel. Farthest to the front at Gettysburg and Chickamauga. Last at Appomattox."

Its quest for a peaceful resolution of our problems was never identified in the minds of its people, of people today, with anything but a desire for peace and a preparation to meet their responsibilities. We move for the first time in our history through an age in which two opposing powers have the capacity to destroy each other, and while we do not intend to see the free world give up, we shall make every effort to prevent the world from being blown up.

 The American Eagle on our official seal emphasizes both peace and freedom, and as I said in the State of the Union Address, we in this country give equal attention to its claws when it in its left hand holds the arrows and in its right the olive branch. This is a time of national maturity, understanding, and willingness to face issues as they are, not as we would like them to be. It is a test of our ability to be far-seeing and calm, as well as resolute, to keep an eye on both our dangers and our opportunities, and not to be diverted by momentary gains, or setbacks, or pressures. And it is the long view of the educated citizen to which the graduates of this university can best contribute.
We must distinguish the real from the illusory, the long-range from the temporary, the significant from the petty, but if we can be purposeful, if we can face up to our risks and live up to our word, if we can do our duty undeterred by fanatics or frenzy at home or abroad, then surely peace and freedom can prevail. We shall be neither Red nor dead, but alive and free--and worthy of the traditions and responsibilities of North Carolina and the United States of America.

Chapel Hill on the day President Kennedy Died

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 by Charly Mann

Chapel Hill throughout most of its history has been a paradox when it comes to affording blacks the same rights and opportunities as whites. While many of its citizens have expressed progressive ideas about slavery, segregation, and racial inequality, Chapel Hill was usually passive or even reactionary when blacks asked for the same rights as whites.

I became personally involved in the civil rights struggle in town at the age of eleven, in 1960. At that time all the schools in Chapel Hill were segregated. The two motels in town, The University Motel and Watts Motel, did not allow blacks. The Bus Station, then a primary hub for transportation, had separate sides and bathrooms for blacks and whites. Both of Chapel Hill's movie theaters were segregated, as well as about 40% of its restaurants, including The College Café, The Pines, Brady's, Watts Grille, and Howard Johnson's. I was an early admirer of Dr. Martin Luther King and the tactics of non-violence he employed in the 1955 Montgomery Alabama bus boycott. I wrote to Dr. King on several occasions in 1961, and was fortunate to briefly interview him when my father was on sabbatical at the University of California.

This is from my 7th grade class picture at Chapel Hill Junior High School (Class of 1962-1963). It is a microcosm of the dynamics of Chapel Hill in 1962. In the center is Sandra Fe Farrington one of first blacks in a Chapel Hill public school, and one of the smartest and most courageous individuals I have ever known. Directly below her is Nancy Nottingham, a friend of mine since elementary school. Her father at this time ran the University Motel which did not allow blacks. From 1962 to 1964 it was the site of many demonstrations and sit-ins. I am on the right side of Nancy, and had already been a part of a protest at her family's business. On the upper right side is Rodney McFarling whose parents owned the EXXON station across from the Junior High School on West Franklin Street. McFarland was among the most popular individuals at the school and was considered a jock. The Chapel Hill Schools did not officially intergrate until 1966. McFarling was part of that class, and several  fellow blacks students have said that McFarling was one of the most accomodationg and friendliest whites they recall during that first year. Some of the other individuals pictured in the photo are Allen Rawls in the upper left, and Brad Hoffman to the right of Ms. Ferrington. Donna Huff is to the left of Nancy, and Mike Preston is to the left of Sandra.

By 1961 there was already a small but vocal civil rights movement in Chapel Hill. Its original focus was to integrate the Varsity and Carolina theater, and to allow blacks to sit down at the tables, counters, and booths at the Long Meadow Dairy Bar and Colonial Drug Store on West Franklin Street. As I recall, picketing, boycotts, and pressure from the University caused the two movie theaters to integrate by 1962. (I think at the Carolina though, the only blacks that could be admitted were those with UNC student IDs – which in those days were only a handful.) In the summer of 1962, just before I started seventh grade, I began marching in civil rights demonstrations down Franklin Street. These marches would usually start at a black Baptist Church located not far from where Crook's Corner is located today. I was usually the only white youth in these demonstrations. Most of the participants were blacks from the segregated Lincoln High School in Carrboro. There were also usually fifteen or twenty whites in the marches made up of a few students and professors, and Father Parker, a long retired Episcopal minister. The man who seemed most in charge of these events was Hilliard Caldwell, a black man who seemed to me to personify the virtues and beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr. The most active white leader in Chapel Hill's civil rights struggle was Pat Cusick who was in his early thirties and was a UNC graduate student.

In 1960, when I was eleven, I became very interested in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and wrote to him several times. This is the first response I got from his assistant. I was impressed by the well thought out and personalized response.

Even though I was considered somewhat eccentric by most of my classmates for my involvement in the civil rights movement, I do not recall a single slur or derogatory comment ever hurled at me. I think part of this was that Chapel Hill celebrated, or at least tolerated, differences in beliefs and tastes better than most communities. In the summer of 1963, Cusick asked me if I wanted to go to with him to the March on Washington to hear Dr. King speak. I jumped at the opportunity, and recall that, besides Pat and me, most of the others on the bus from Chapel Hill to Washington were black. I got to carry a large sign in the march, and was fairly close to the podium to hear Dr. King’s famous "I Have a Dream" speech, though I confess that seeing and hearing Peter, Paul, and Mary perform made a more indelible impression on me at the time.

Pat Cusick organized the bus trip from Chapel Hill to Washington that I took. This letter is to Civil Rights leader Floyd McKissick who made a speech before Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

In the Spring of 1961, I was living in California with my father who was on sabbatical. Dr. King's organization, the SCLC, invited me to a small gathering of reporters at a church in Berkeley California where I got to talk to Dr King for several minutes. I recall walking about 25 blocks from my house to get to this church, and that there were less than fifteen people there to talk to him. (This is a page in the "book" I wrote about Dr. King for my fifth grade class.)

Over the course of the next several years I plan to offer several dozen features on the history of race relations and civil rights in Chapel Hill. There are many fascinating twists and turns to the story, as I have discovered that Chapel Hill was far more progressive in the first half of the twentieth century than most people think. I believe the town could have made much earlier strides in social justice and integration if some leader could have galvanized the community. As it was, Chapel Hill did not integrate its schools until 1966, two years after the 1964 Civil Rights Bill that outlawed segregation in schools. The University of North Carolina had a handful of black students before 1964, and it was not until 1966 that the University of North Carolina even had its first black basketball player, Charlie Scott.

My one souvenir from the March on Washington

 
This is the forward of my book on Dr. Martin Luther King from March 1961. I remember writing it out the evening after I interviewed him. I recall he gave me some suggestions for my book, and I think may have given me this poem. I have looked for it in his writings and have not found it. I did not assign anyone's name to it in my book, so I will attribute it to me or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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In the above-illustrated portraits of Chapel Hill from 1930, you will note several groups of students hitchhiking toward Durham. In those days the streets were packed with students urging every car that went by to pick them up. If the car did not stop, it was common for the students to make rude jesters and catcalls at the driver. Durham offered these young men more restaurants, theaters, stores, and girls than Chapel Hill.

The Strowds were long time business and land owners in Chapel Hill. They had been in the livery stable business before the car business, and also had one of the town's first restaurants.  

This is the theater that everyone in crowding into in the above illustration.

By 1930 Chapel Hill had gone from being a small country village to a town that had aspects of a small city. Massive structures were being planned throughout the University including the Bell tower that was to include a large park and a pond. The sidewalks on both sides of Franklin Street had been transformed from dirt and mud to pavement. 

The north side of Franklin Street in 1930

There were a record number of students enrolled at UNC that year, 2759. The pressures of the modern world were also taking a toll on the population. For a town of less than 5000, suicide and depression were becoming a common occurrence. That year for example, L.J. Bell, a German professor who was one the most prominent members of the UNC faculty, was a suicide victim. He was only twenty-two, and had graduated with highest honors from UNC in three years at 19 in 1927. He later received a master’s degree. Besides German, he was fluent in French, Italian and Hungarian

While the above prices seem inexpensive by today's standards, by 1936 as the Depession worsened, restaurant meals in Chapel Hill were often less than half what they were in 1930.

There were other barbers offering haircuts for 25 cents in Chapel Hill in 1930. You can see this barber shop on the left-hand side of the theater in the photo in this article.

All the ads in this article are from 1930s Chapel Hill newspapers.

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by Charly Mann

In the spring of 1935 the male to female student ratio at the University of North Carolina was more than 16 to 1. Carolina men have always enjoyed the company of women and the University and many of its social organizations sponsored an array of dances, banquets, teas, and formal balls for the two sexes to mix. In order to accommodate the demand for women, the Chapel Hill Town Girl’s Club was formed to allow all single girls of dating age to participate in the social functions at UNC. If you were looking for a husband with a good education, Chapel Hill was a wonderful place for a girl to grow up in during the majority of its history.

1949 Chapel Hill Town’s Girl’s Club
First Row: Katherine Hogan, Becky Huggins, Mary Mae Kear, Carolyn Guthrie, Pat Winslow, Dot Sloan, Frances Greene / Second Row: Betty Sue Jacobs, Janet Ellington, Mary Deane Williams, Elizabeth Heller, Jane Sparrow, Phillis Ferguson, Preston Westcoat, Elizabeth Lyons, Katherine Thompson, Barbara Garrett / Third Row: Madeline Jennings, Pat Sullivan, “Bootsie” Taylor, Jean Cashion, Jeanne Vashaw, Madge Crawford, Betty Heath, Jo Bissell

Madeline Jennings (back row far left) was one of my favorite Chapel Hill human beings. She was eighteen when this picture was taken. Soon after this she was engaged to a dashing UNC graduate student. She lived in Chapel Hill her entire life raising four children, and was married to local dentist Tom Darden. She died in December of 2008 after living a truly wonderful life.

Most of the women at the 1935 May Frolics were town girls and not coeds.

By 1952 the ratio had lessened to four males for every female, and coeds voiced their displeasure about how much harder it was to find a good man in a series of articles in the Daily Tar Heel. However, as a young male growing up in the fifties and early sixties in Chapel Hill, I recall thinking when I was about twelve that it would be very hard to ever get a college aged girl interested in me. UNC men actually acted quite desperate in these days. Panty raids of girl's dorms by more than a hundred men at a time became a common occurrence in the early fifties, and was a major concern of town and campus law enforcement.

Coeds and town women often had six or more offers for dates to the many baquets and dances at Carolina from 1927 to 1965.

Tea Dances were very popular at UNC in the 1920s, 30's, and 40s. This one is from 1939.

Today the odds have been reversed to 6 women for every four men. Now coeds report that they often have to offer a lot in return to get a man to show any interest in them. Dating in a conventional sense has become uncommon, and casual sex is now the norm. Several female students I recently spoke to say it is the lack of men that is changing the moral conventions about relationships. They think things would improve if there were at least an even number of both sexes. To them the current ratio is ridiculous, and only favors the few men lucky enough to be enrolled at Carolina. Some believe UNC discriminates against men in their admissions. Others say men just are not as academically gifted as today's women. Some say we need an affirmative action style program to bolster male enrollment, though many women would likely complain that their places would be taken in order to reach sexual parity.

UNC Sophmore Hop 1936

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On the 20th anniversary of D-Day the Chapel Hill Weekly published the following piece in which they spoke to four Chapel Hillians who had participated in the historic D-DAY invasion that set up the defeat of Hitler’s Germany and the Allied Victory in Europe on May 8, 1945.

Twenty years ago early yesterday morning Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy in the biggest offensive invasion in military history. The sky was overcast and the English Channel was rough. The Germans were solidly entrenched and Allied losses were heavy.

For many men, D-Day was the biggest event of a lifetime. The men who survived it thought they would never forget it. Some were right. But the martial drums beat softly now in the memories of most of the men who invaded France. Some men remember the absurdity of military life. Some men find D-Day dull in retrospect. For others, days of combat that once stood out singly have blended into stretches of daylight and darkness punctuated by gunfire, artillery barrages, foxhole digging, and death.

2499 Americans were killed on D-Day

A great many Chapel Hillians fought in the Pacific and China-Burma-India, and in North Africa, Italy, or Europe. But survivors of D-Day are hard to find. These four men remember the invasion:

Dr. Michael Berkut, now an assistant professor of biochemistry in the University School of Medicine and a full colonel in the Army Reserve, was a captain in the 82nd Airborne Division and landed behind the lines at dawn on D-Day. He tells about it in a cool, gently, almost (but not quite) dispassionate voice.

“For about a week before the invasion our troops had been ‘sealed in’ at various bases all over England, but I had been going around from base to base in a Cub distributing invasion maps. I was an intelligence officer, in command of the command and reconnaissance platoons of the 325th Glider Infantry.

“We loaded up and took off at about midnight, June fifth. I was in command of five gliders. I had Dutch commandos and French underground men with me, and airborne infantrymen. We rendezvoused in the air over England and took our places in the train – I don’t know how many miles long the train was, but there were a great many gliders. We flew around over England for about five hours, and then went into France about dawn. There was just a purplish haze when we went in. The ports in the glider were very small, and all you could see was this purplish grey haze, and the coast of France. We couldn’t see anything on the beaches.

“Our air speed was about 250 miles per hour, and when the tug cut us loose about seven miles inland, we came in ‘hot.’ Usually, when you’re cut loose, you glide for two or three more miles and then come in, but for some reason our pilot came right straight in. We were going about 170 miles an hour when we hit. The glider weighed 3800 pounds and we were loaded with 4200 pounds. We couldn’t have rolled more than 200 yards, and then we crashed into the roof of a barn. The fabric underneath the glider was torn away, and we could see a horse running around in the barnyard. The pilot and co-pilot screamed, and it turned out that the nose of the glider had hit a tree and was pinned. They were pretty badly hurt.

“I had my jeep driver and a radio operator with me, and six infantrymen, and the trailer with all the regimental maps in it. My jeep was in another glider. We had to chop our way out of the glider. We got the trailer out, and we had to lift the pilot and co-pilot out very carefully. We left them with rations and blankets. We couldn’t do anything else. There wasn’t any time to play around, because this was all under fire, small arms and mortar fire. We landed right in the middle of 91st German Infantry’s maneuver area.

“We had to get to the assembly area and get together, because unless we could do that we wouldn’t be a fighting group. We were afraid of the trailer being captured with all the maps in it, but we found the jeep and got to the assembly area and formed a perimeter defense, and started making our way toward Ste. Mere Eglise. That afternoon we captured 42 Germans, eight motorcycles, and tracked reconnaissance vehicles and German equipment. Some other members of the 82nd captured Ste. Mere Eglise, and we went across the Merderet River.”

Captain Burkut spent 33 days in combat, then was relieved and returned to England.

“We weren’t hit in mid-air, which happened to several other gliders. We were lucky when we hit, because the trailer was tied down very well. In some gliders, if the lashings on a jeep weren’t very good, the jeep would break loose on impact and just go running over men and everything. My order of battle officer, a young captain, he was in another glider and for some reason, curiosity I guess, he was standing up when the glider hit, holding on the the tubing, and he broke both shoulder blades.

“I don’t know what I was thinking or feeling. I didn’t pay much attention to the small arms fire, there was so much to do. It was a pretty busy time. I was scared, sure.”

His curtain of composure parted for the first time, and he gave a little nervous laugh.

“I was scared. But I had made up my mind that I wasn’t coming back, and that made it easier.”

John Young, now the director of WUNC-TV, was an ensign on the LST on D-Day.
 

7109 North Carolina troops were killed in World War II

“For weeks before the invasion we had been up in the Fal River,” he said. “the Fal is in southwest England. It’s the river at the mouth of which Falmouth is. It’s a good 50 feet wide, and they dredged it, and it’s covered over with trees. They put umpteen LST’s up in there, and we hid there.

“We actually saw more action on April 28 than we did on D-Day. We were on a training exercise, landing troops on the south coast of England, and all the warships were out in the middle of the Channel. We were about three or four miles off the coast, and German U-boats and E-boats, which is the equivalent of our PT boat, they attacked.

“At the time, we were officers, but actually we thought our skipper was pretty much of an s.o.b. His name was Yacevitch. Polish. He was a mustang, and he’d been a quartermaster on old Bull Halsey’s ship in the Pacific, and they needed somebody to command these LST’s green ninety-day wonders, of which I was one, somebody who had been in the Navy, who know an anchor from something. The sad part about him was that he had finished the seventh or eighth grade or something. He used to say, ‘Youse officers think you’re so damn smart,’ he said that all the time. Anyway, during the attack he suddenly started screaming orders down the tube, starboard engine back full, port ahead flank, full right rudder, and so on, and for about fifteen or twenty seconds – an eternity, you know, - in a situation like that – nobody realized that there was a torpedo headed for us and he was the only man who saw it. It passed about six feet off the bow. After that our opinion of Yacevitch changed a little.

“We went up to Portsmouth, I’ve forgotten when, but I think it was about the second of June that the ship was sealed: nobody allowed on or off. I remember the mail ship came alongside and Yacevitch waved it off. This caused a great deal of consternation among the crew. What harm could there be in receiving mail sent from the States weeks before: But anyway. And then I think it was June third, I was sent ashore to get provisions. An officer had to go with the men because the ship had been sealed, and when we got ashore, you know the British were so touchy about these things, they saw us coming and sent word through channels, ‘One of your ships is sending a party ashore.’ We were met by Americans, and we said we’d come for the supplies we’d ordered the day before, but they said no supplies. Back. So we went back without the supplies.

“Then I guess it was June third a boat came alongside and three seabags, ordinary duffel bags, were taken on board and they contained instructions for Operation Overload. I remember, they were filled with books. The first one I pulled out was about six inches thick. We took these things down to the wardroom, and the skipper took them into his cabin to look at them, and one by one they’d come out to us. We had instructions to familiarize ourselves with these things thoroughly, which was an almost impossible task. It wasn’t until the second day of reading that we found the first, even the slightest mention of any invasion. We were the flagship for the flotilla of LST’s, and there was a flotilla of LCT’s on both sides of us, and we had an escort of gunboats –British trawlers with guns mounted on them. We had the flotilla commander on board, a Navy Captain. We never did find out if the other ships got those instructions, but it’s possible they didn’t.

“Well, we went into Portsmouth to get the soldiers. An LST’s complement is 130, and we had 30 extra, hospital corpsmen and 270 soldiers came on board. It was an Army communications unit, with vehicles. The Army people offered us their cooking facilities, but our cooks allowed as how they’d just as soon do it all themselves. The Army people didn’t know where anything was – in fact, they thought it was a kitchen when it was a galley. We had store rooms and store rooms full of the traditional Spam, but we never ate that stuff. The officers ate from the general mess, and we had fresh meat all the time, fresh vegetables a lot of the time. But we didn’t have enough of that to feed the soldiers, so the cooks reluctantly broke out the Spam. I must say they tried their best, they doctored it up with pineapple, or brown sugar, or Spanish sauce, but the crew took one look at it and went back below. They wouldn’t eat that stuff. But the Army went around saying that was the best damn chow they’d had since they went in the service.

“We had a baker on board named Warchocki. He was a baker, naturally, because he had been a motor machinist as a civilian. He stayed up all night one night, and nobody could figure out why until it turned out that Warchocki was soft-hearted, and he thought it would be nice if the soldiers had fresh bread. He baked bread all night, and the soldiers said that was the first fresh bread they’d had since they went in the Army and why hadn’t they been told about this Navy business long ago?

“You know there were two D-Days, June fifth, and then the real one. On D-minus one, about eight-thirty or nine in the morning we raised anchor and lined up, the whole flotilla, and started moving down the coast. We moved east, three or four miles off the south coast of England very slowly, about five knots. We were supposed to go to a Buoy Zebra, then turn and zip across to France. We hadn’t gotten to Buoy Zebra, and the man on duty in the radio shack was relieved temporarily, to go to the head or something, and a radioman striker took over for a few minutes. When the regular radio man came back the striker said, ‘You know, I got the strangest message,’ ‘Oh, really, what was that?’ ‘Well, it wasn’t addressed to anybody, and I couldn’t make any sense out of it. It said Post Mike One.’

“Well, the radioman about went through the roof. Post Mike One was a code message that meant postpone the invasion by 24 hours. Post Mike Two was postpone by 48 hours. This was June fourth, remember. We hadn’t gotten to Buoy Zebra, so it wasn’t anything too dramatic, but it was interesting.

“I was OD that watch, and the con was about eight feet long. I remember Johanneson, the four-striper in command of the flotilla, he paced up and down in that little confined space for a long time, and finally he said, ‘Dammit, Young, I’ve got this whole thing figured out, but I can’t figure out how to turn around and go back.’ All these LST’s and LCT’s could have turned around, each ship in its own radius, but it takes experienced seamen to do that and some of these boys weren’t so hot. What Johanneson finally did was order a left flank turn, and then he let everybody go on for a while until they got straightened out and then ordered another left flank. But by then we were dangerously near the beach, because we had only been three or four miles off. That put us at the back of the line, and gave us a chance to do some hotrodding. Our top speed was a breakneck eleven knots, about thirteen miles an hour. So Johanneson said, ‘Take her up front,’ and we pulled out of line and went passing everybody at eleven knots to the front.

“To make a long story short, we went back the next night, got to Buoy Zebra at about eleven, and we were supposed to land at seven in the morning. It took six or seven hours to cross the Channel. When we got to the beach – this was Omaha Red, that was the hot one – you remember they met unexpected resistance. We were told to stand off for a while. Well, we stayed there over two nights without unloading. The Army commander put his communications unit into operation on board the ship, and it turned out that he was a vital link in communications. But the original instructions were that communications would be run by the Navy until the troops landed, and then it would be Army communications. There was a whole lot of confusion, and the Army commander wouldn’t get off the ship. He said it would be just – well, deadly, the worst thing that could happen, to break communications. We kept asking the invasion flagship for instructions about this. I remember encoding those messages, and everybody was talking in plain language by now, I don’t know why we encoded messages. The invasion commander had no time to decode messages at that point.

“At one point we went to within a half a mile of the beach and the shells landed near us, but we didn’t get hit. Then the Texas was too near us, and they were lobbing these great big sixteen-inch shells trying to knock out the big guns on shore, and those shells seemed to go over about five feet off our deck. After a while the skipper moved about five miles down the beach. The spectacular thing I remember was watching the destroyers. They’d head right in at the beach at flank speed, then reverse their engines as hard as they could, which would send spray up as high as the mast of the ship, and fire everything they had, and get out fast. What they were trying to do was knock out the pillboxes on shore. Then they’d go out and come in again from another angle.”

Mr. Young said the anti-aircraft fire that night was so intense, “you could read a newspaper by the light of the tracer bullets.” Wounded were taken aboard the next day, despite the original plan to discharge troops and then take on wounded. The Army communications unit refused to land for fear of breaking the communications link it formed, but the Army commander, Mr. Young said, was bitter about the adverse morale factor created by bringing wounded onto a ship still carrying fresh troops.

A total of 48,231,700 people were killed in World War II

“Finally, the skipper said he was going in, and the door of the ship would remain open half an hour. If the Army wasn’t off by then, he said, he was going back to England and so was the Army. They got off.”

Mr. Young’s LST subsequently made 104 trips across the Channel, 52 round trips, before returning to this country in 1945. For three weeks after the invasion the crew remained at General Quarters – four hours on, four hours off – making 15 round trips to carry over the troops that had backed up in England.

“I never saw any of the real horror, except some of the wounded Marines brought on board. There wasn’t any feeling of invasion tenseness. It was a sort of numbness. We had all been though so many exercises, and we’d had more action on April 28 than any time, that nobody really cared. I do remember that when we saw newspaper accounts of the invasion, they didn’t sound like exactly what we had been through.”

W. D. Locke retired in Chapel Hill in 1962 after 20 years in the Air Force. He was a major and a member of the University AFROTC unit faculty when he retired.

On D-Day, Mr. Locke (he has not retained his rank in retirement), then a captain, flew three missions over Omaha Beach. He was a P-47 fighter-bomber pilot in the 50th Fighter Group. His plane was named Ronda Belle, the Ronda after his wife, to whom he was only engaged. “I don’t know where I got the Belle. I just got the idea one day and threw it on the plane.” Mrs. Locke was named after the town of Ronda in western North Carolina. Mr. Locke is a native of Enfield, in Halifax County.

“We were briefed at about eight or nine o’clock the night of June fifth,” he said. “We had known the invasion, or something like it, was coming for some time. During that briefing they told us the invasion would be the next day.

“Takeoff time was at three in the morning. We got up about one-thirty, ate breakfast, and had another briefing.”

In briefings the squadron commander would inform his pilots what the mission would be, and then the squadron intelligence officer would take over and describe the actual target, point out dangerous concentrations of flak and any other peculiarities of the target, assign call signs and signals, and give the pilots escape and evasion advice – places to try to land near in order to be taken in by the French underground should they have to bail out.

“Everything was all planned by wing headquarters in advance. Engine start time, taxi time, takeoff time, which squadron took off first, time over target. They gave us maps with the courses all drawn on them. All we had to do was listen to what was said, take a few notes, and fly the airplane. We all had pads of paper with all this information on them, but a lot of the men used to write the information on the palm of their hand, or the back of their arm, so if they had to get rid of it they could just spit on it and rub it off. They wrote it in pen and ink. Regular fountain pen. It meant they didn’t have to carry the piece of paper.

“We took off and flew over. We only had to go about 35 or 40 miles, about fifteen minutes. At that time of the year over there it begins to get light about four o’clock. We were – whatever three times sixteen is – three squadrons. Forty-eight planes. As you probably know, General Eisenhower had a big decision to make, whether to have the invasion or not. The weather was very bad, but the weather people told him there was going to be enough of a letup to go ahead and do it. Our mission was to keep the German planes away from the beaches. Most of the German Air Force had been pulled back into Germany anyway, as air defense. We were given a sector to cover, about fifteen or twenty miles square starting from three or four miles inland from the beach. Omaha Beach. We were supposed to fly at fifteen thousand, twelve thousand, and nine thousand feet, one squadron at each, stepping down, but when we got over there the ceiling over the beach was about a thousand or eleven hundred feet.

“So we flew down the beach and turned left and flew inland for fifteen or twenty miles, and turned left again, flying more or less in a square. We were flying at seven or eight hundred feet, and I could see the beaches. I had a brief bird’s eye view of everything. I saw shells exploding, and there were shells exploding inland too, from the Navy out in the Channel, and wrecked equipment, burning equipment, the troops on the beaches, everything there was to see.

“We flew around for about three hours and then went home. But there were a lot of fighter groups flying that day, in relays, so when we left another group took over. Then about ten or eleven o’clock we flew back on another mission. Nothing happened on the first mission, but on the second mission a few German fighters sneaked in from somewhere. Our squadron let down to join the bottom squadron when they started screaming about these planes, but by then the action was over, and two of the four to six planes had been shot down and the rest were chased off. I guess we all wanted a chance to shoot down an enemy plane.”

(In September, 1944, Capt. Locke shot down a Fockewulf 190 over Cologne. “My crew chief had a swastika painted on my plane before the engine was cool.)

“Then we went home and later that afternoon, about four or five o’clock, we went back on another mission and flew around for another three hours. They were on double daylight savings time then, so it didn’t get dark until about ten-thirty. We could see everything.

“Nothing happened during any of those three missions except the German planes on the second one. Nobody shot at us. The Germans knew why we were there, to keep the German Air force away, and as I said most of their planes had been pulled back. At a thousand feet you can’t get a good strafing run set up, you can’t dive bomb. You could skip-bomb if you had bombs with delayed action fuses, but we had already been beating the hell out of that area for weeks beforehand anyway. We weren’t expending any ammunition ourselves, though for months before that we had been going over into France, and even into Germany, to bomb bridges, and trains, cut lines of communication – anything that moved was fair game. I’m sure there were some Frenchmen who got some attention they didn’t deserve. We had been getting ready for this. But nothing happened.”

The 50th Fighter Group was transferred to France about two weeks after D-Day, to a freshly bulldozed landing strip near Ste. Mere Eglise. As Capt. Locke stepped out of his plane after landing in France for the first time a shell burst at the end of the runway. Not long after that his squadron began to suffer losses, until eventually its operational strength was reduced to eight planes.

“There was one point when you could stand on the landing strip and watch the planes take off, go to their targets, dive bomb and come back, and never lose sight of the planes.”

But that was during St. Lo and the weeks that followed.

“D-Day was just milk runs,” he said. “Nothing but milk runs.”

His telephone rang and he answered it, “Major Locke speaking,” which was odd because ordinarily he refers to himself as Mr. Locke. When he hung up he said, “That’s funny, I don’t use ‘Major Locke,’ but just talking about World War Two, it all felt so natural to me I thought I was back at my desk at Langley Field, or something.”

Samuel Eugene Hundley of Chapel Hill landed on Utah Beach on D-Day plus two, June 8, 1944. Mr. Hundley was born in Carrboro and now works at the Chapel Hill Post Office.

“There was a time when I thought I’d never forget even the minutest detail,” he said. “It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. I remembered it for three or four years, but then it began to fade. I was a rifleman in the infantry – ‘the Queen of Battle.’ I was a scout.”

PFC Hundley was 20 years old when he reached England on May 15, 1944. He had been training for the previous 14 months with the 87th Infantry in Mississippi. The 87th had been broken up when sent overseas, and its men were assigned to different units as overstrength – calculated reserves.

“They knew they were going to lose a lot of men, so they had us ready in reserves, instead of waiting until they needed reserves and then bringing them over.”

He was assigned to the 4th Infantry in England, stationed in Bournemouth (“a beautiful town. They say it’s the Atlantic City of England”).

“I didn’t know anybody over there. I only remember two names. One was Al Morrison. He and I decided we’d ‘buddy-buddy’, only he wanted to be some kind of hero, and every time there was a patrol or something, he’d volunteer. He was a BAR man, and I was his ammunition bearer, so every time he volunteered, he’d turn around to me and say, ‘Should we volunteer, Hundley?’ and I’d have to go along. But after a while I stopped going with him every time.

Samuel Eugene Hundley of Chapel Hill -- April 19, 1924 – July 28, 1967

“The other guy I remember was Pop Sheehan, he was about 45 years old and I don’t know how he ever got overseas, he must have really pulled some strings. He didn’t have any family and everybody called him Pop. I don’t know whether he got killed or not, but the last time I saw him a piece of shrapnel had torn his neck away. I guess he was killed.

“The morning of D-Day they roused us out of bed about two in the morning. They issued us rifles – all our equipment had been left back in the States when they shipped us over. The rifles were all filled with cosmoline and it took two or three hours to get ‘em in shooting condition. They didn’t tell us what was happening, but we all figured out what it was when we saw the planes flying over. The sky was just filled with planes, and we knew it was something big. They took us down to a staging area and issued the gas mask, and gas-repellent clothing. The thing that worried me was they didn’t give us any entrenching tool. I’d had that drummed into me from here to eternity in training, when you stop moving, go to digging. They paid us ten dollars in invasion francs.

“Then we went to I think it was Southampton and got on some kind of Limey ship. I don’t know what kind of ship it was, just some ship. We spent the night in the harbor.

“The next morning early, about eight-thirty or nine, we left the harbor and went out into the Channel. We spent that night on the Channel, and that night I learned to play cribbage. I sat up all night playing cribbage with this young lieutenant, he was 19, younger than I was.

“The next morning they brought up LCI’s and we got on board them. The swells were very rough, twelve or fifteen-foot swells as I remember. They put cargo nets over the side and we climbed down, and when the LCI went down in one of those swells we waited, and when it came up we jumped in. I remember one guy, I felt sorry for him at the time, but later I wished it had been me, he was a little shy about jumping. He just put one foot on the edge of the LCI when it came up on a swell, and wham, the side of LCI crushed his leg against the side of the ship. I was down on the LCI and I looked up and saw it. They caught him and got him back up.

“We went in, and it didn’t look bad. There were shell holes, and you could see where there had been underwater obstacles. When we waded in sometimes you hit water over your head, but mostly it was chest high. There were shells falling, but not too close. The guns were in range, but there was nothing close. There was a general on the beach urging us on. Somebody said if was General Bradley, but I don’t know. He was saying, ‘Come on boys, let’s get on in, let’s get in there,’ and waving us on.

“We started inland. There were about twenty of us, we had two officers with us, two lieutenants. I guess somebody knew where we were going, but I didn’t. It was just a case of following the man in front of you. There weren’t any bluffs at Utah, not like Omaha. It was flat, marshy ground. We were supposed to go up and join our company, but nine of us never got there. I never saw the company commander. He had been killed by the time we got there. The company was near Monteburg, which was on a hill. Hill 618, or something like that, but I don’t remember. That was our objective.

“We went about a mile, I guess. Maybe not that far. I can’t remember. About a mile. Then I saw my first dead. There was a paratrooper, and two Germans, lying within a few yards of each other, in a triangle. The paratrooper only had a hatchet for an entrenching tool, and the two Germans didn’t have entrenching tools, so I took the hatchet. It looked like they’d been killed by a hand grenade, because they had little punctures all over them.”

Beyond that point, time has become a disconnected series of incidents in Mr. Hundley’s memory. There was the apple orchard:

“It was just a little orchard, with hedgerows around it, but we got into an artillery barrage. We were all bunched up, six or eight feet apart, when we should have been that many yards apart. I was down on one knee leaning on my rifle, and when the shells started landing I flipped over on my belly. That put the guy behind me in front of me. I heard him scream, and I turned around and said, ‘What’s the matter, Red?’ I don’t remember his name. Everybody called him Red. He was a self-professed hobo, so I don’t know what ever became of him. He said, ‘They blew my leg off.’ They had, right below the knee. I said, ‘Red, there isn’t a thing in this world I can do,’ but I called the medic, and he answered, but he said he wasn’t coming – it was his first combat too. I called him again and he came. Then the guy in front of me, I heard him go ‘Uh’ and he fell forward. A piece of shrapnel caught him right between the shoulder blades and killed him deader’n heck. He never knew what hit him……..”

After they left the orchard they came to a paved road about half as wide as Franklin Street, “maybe not even that wide. There was some officer down there, and he said, ‘Boys, I want you to cross this road singly, because there’s a machine gun crew’s got it zeroed in.’ Well, I got over all right, but one of the lieutenants, when he started across a shell landed close by and knocked him down. I had jumped into a foxhole somebody else had dug and left behind. He got across all right, and came over to my foxhole and grinned down at me with his face all covered with blood –he hadn’t been hit, but the concussion of the shell had just opened up his skin – he grinned at me and he said, ‘Hundley, are you as scared as you thought you’d be?’ and I said, ‘Lieutenant, I’m not near as scared as you’re going to be dead if you don’t get down in this foxhole.’ The Germans were just sewing the ground with machine gun fire all around, and that Lieutenant, he didn’t even realize it. He was so shocked. And grinning, a kind of nervous, tense grin. I grabbed him by the ankle and jerked him down with me……”

When PFC Hundley’s group reached its company, only 11 of the original 20 were alive, and all who hadn’t been wounded were either carrying a corner of a stretcher or supporting walking wounded. The company itself had lost 100 of its original 186 men, including its commander.

Mr. Hundley’s memory of the sequence of events after he joined his company is even more hazy. He recalls not having eaten anything for two days after he landed, and his consuming three K-rations and a D-bar at one sitting when he finally did eat. He remembers another artillery barrage when a man ran unscratched through thick machine gun fire and back with a medic to help his buddy – who had been killed. He remembers the railroad track incident:

“We were in this little field and a railroad track run beside it. A German machine gun position was nearby. The lieutenant said he was going to step out on the railroad track to see what he could see. One of the men who had already been in combat a few days, he said, ‘Don’t do that, they’ll kill you, lieutenant.’ But the lieutenant had had all his training in the States, and he hadn’t been in combat before. ‘They won’t expose a machine gun position for just one man,’ he said, and stepped over the hedge and about the time he set foot on the first tie and turned to face down the track they cut him in two. That was the same lieutenant I had played cribbage with all night on the ship…..”

PFC Hundley was scared, and admits it. But his fear varied. “On the ship before we went in I was scared, but it wasn’t fear that I’d be killed or anything. It was fear that I wouldn’t measure up. There was also a feeling of guilt, because I went in on D-two, and by the time I got there an awful lot of war had been fought. But I’d been training all those months, and then I didn’t get to do what I’d been trained for. I had a feeling of, you know, like I should have been there. But after I got there, in that apple orchard, that was just stark fear.

“You know, they say there aren’t any atheists in foxholes. Who was it said that, Ernie Pyle? I think it was. Anyway, I don’t know, there may be somebody who could say he was an atheist and he was in a foxhole, but there was this one Jewish kid with us when we got to Monteburg, and he had a fatalist attitude – if it’s going to be it’s going to be. He didn’t dig his foxhole very deep. Every time I got a chance, I dug mine deeper, but he didn’t dig too deep. They started shelling, and a shell hit a tree and a piece of the shrapnel went right through his helmet and killed him. But if he really believed that about if it’s going to be it’s going to be, why did he dig at all? Digging is hard work. I think everybody prays in a foxhole. I did a right smart of praying myself.”

After about a month of combat, Mr. Hundley was hospitalized with battle fatigue and later was transferred to an ordnance unit. Some of his hospitalization was spent in the Fifth Army Hospital in Ste. Mere Eglis, not far from where Capt. W. D. Locke’s 50th Fighter Group was based, and near where Capt. Burkut’s glider landed. 

D-Day occured on June 6, 1994. This piece appeared in The Chapel Hill Weekly on Sunday June 7th, 1964. It was written by J.A.C. Dunn.

This article was submitted by Ruth Hundley Vickers, reader, gardner, and yard boy. She is the sister of Samuel Eugene Hundley, who is the last of the four veterans to give their account of D-Day in this article.

 

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by Charly Mann

The Flower Ladies of Chapel Hill were a common colorful sight along Franklin Street for more than five decades beginning in the late 1920s. They were a group of African American women who grew and sold flowers. Their flowers were arranged in plastic buckets filled with daisies, daffodils, marigolds, asters, sweet williams, lillies, roses, and cockscombs. The flowers were sold in bunches of one type or as a mixed bouquet. When I was small boy in the 1950s I remember buying bunches for my mother at 25 cents. By the early 1970s the price of a bunch was only a $1.00.

The Flower Ladies during the last year they were allowed to sell on Franklin Street, 1971

In the late sixties hippie merchants decided to imitate the flower ladies and sell a variety of items including used phonograph albums, leather goods, and drug paraphernalia along Franklin Street. Besides making the sidewalks narrower, local merchants, who were often paying more than a $1000 a month to rent store space on Franklin Street, were not happy with this new competition.

Initially the town council tried to stop these new sidewalk sellers by banning sales of anything but flowers along Franklin Street. The street sellers circumvented the new ordinance by “selling flowers” which would come along with “free” merchandise such as the clothing, records, or the hash pipes they had previously sold. As a the city had to ban all sidewalk sales on Franklin Street in 1971. Fortunately exemptions were made to allow the flower ladies to sell their wares in the passageway of NCNB Plaza and the alley a few stores east of the Varsity Theater. But Franklin Street was never the same again, and the number of flower ladies steadily declined. Also over the last couple of decades the few flower ladies who remained rarely grew their own flowers. 

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by Charly Mann

This is a campus map from 1881. Through almost half of UNC's history there were less than a dozen buildings on campus.

In 1952 John Williams Canada came back to Chapel Hill for a visit. He had graduated from UNC in 1896 and was now in his eighties. When he was student in Chapel Hill Carolina’s enrollment was less than 600, and the town was just a tiny village of 1000. He was saddened to see the growth that had come to his beloved town which now had a population of just over 9000. Of that number almost 6000 were students. In his day he said “Every boy on the campus knew each other, and professors took a personal interest in their students”. He said, “no one in 1896 could have dreamed of Chapel Hill ever being as large at it was now” (1952). When Canada was at UNC he recalled that in winter students had to go out into the surrounding forests to cut wood for the fireplaces in their dorm rooms. In 1893 he said no one could have imagined a building with central heat.

This map and index below lists every building in Chapel Hill from 1875 to 1885, and the names of the family who occupied each house in town.

In 1934 a group of older Chapel Hill residents were asked to describe the Chapel Hill they remembered in their youth some fifty to sixty years earlier. The map above describes the location and occupants of each building in town between 1875 and 1885. Sadly there are many houses whose locations have been recalled that no one could remember who lived there. I hope that readers of Chapel Hill Memories who grew up in town will send us maps of the locations of the houses in their neighborhoods, and who lived in them.

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by Charly Mann

In 1818 there were only two stores and one tavern on Franklin Street along with about a dozen houses. The tavern was called Hilliard’s and the names of the businesses were Trice’s and Tom Taylor’s store. As late as 1898 much of what is now the central business district of downtown Chapel Hill was still farmland. From where the Carolina Coffee Shop is today to Columbia Street and south to where the Ackland Art Museum stands was a farm surrounded by a cornfield. It was not until 1907 that this land was divided up and sold into commercials lots.

This is Spencer Dorm facing the Chapel of the Cross  in 1926. This is the "new"  larger chapel for the church and was built in 1926. Spencer was the first women's dormitory on the UNC campus and had just been built. It was not until the following year that it was named Spencer in honor of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. (This photo was taken from the lawn of the President's house.)

Before 1900 few people would venture out after dark in town. Not only were there no electric lights anywhere in Orange County, but also there was not even a single kerosene lantern on the streets or walkways of Chapel Hill. Finally in 1920 electric lampposts were installed around the UNC campus, and in 1927 twelve similar street lamps were placed from Raleigh Street to Columbia Street on the north side of Franklin Street. That same year the main part of Franklin Street was also paved.

Elm tree along path at the University of North Carolina in 1925 

One of the most beautiful sights in Chapel Hill in the 19th century was a row of elm trees that aligned Franklin Street, but by 1927 there were all dying and were removed and replaced with new trees spaced evenly between the new lampposts.

This is Phillips Hall on the UNC campus which was built in 1920. My father, William Robert Mann (1920 - 2007), was a mathamatics professor at the Univesity, and had his office and taught his classes in this building.This photo was taken in 1926. Behind Phillips in this picture is the original Memorial Hall which was built in 1885 and demolished in 1930 because it was unsafe.

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by Charly Mann

I was born and raised in Chapel Hill in the 1950s and 1960s. While I won’t say this was the best time in my life, there was never a better time or place to grow up. The actual population of Chapel Hill was about 5,000 during the 50s, though the census claims it was 4,000 more. This was because students and graduate students who were often married and with children were also counted. Anytime there was a university holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas and the students left, the town seemed nearly deserted. During the summers the population dwindled even more. In those days homes were not air conditioned, and many families took long vacations to the beach, mountains, or even retreated as far way as California or New England to avoid the oppressive heat and humidity. Also the majority of kids went way to camp for at least a month every summer. I recall several times walking up Franklin Street on a hot July afternoon in the mid-1950s and not seeing a single soul on the sidewalk from Henderson Street up to the corner of Columbia. So many of my friends would be away in the summers that I usually had to find a different set of kids to play with during those months.

These are some of my friends from Chapel Hill in the 1950s. From left to right, Tollie Clark who lived in Morgan Creek. Sandy Little who lived in Glen Lenox, myself Charles (Charly) Mann who lived on Old Mill Road in Greenwood, Joe Phillips who lived a couple of miles down on the then desolate, Barbee Chapel Road, Johnny Barret (on the back of Joe) who lived in Morgan Creek, and Hank Brandis, squatting in the middle, who lived around the corner from me on Arrowhead Road. This photo is from October of 1959.

I admit I was spoiled by Chapel Hill as a child. No other place could match the beauty, charm, and smile inducing people. I dreaded every vacation my family took, and vividly recall a sickening feeling each time we pulled out of our driveway to start a trip. I loved to breathe Chapel Hill's air and play in the many forests that were near my house. I lived in the Greenwood neighborhood near 15-501. In those days, it seemed almost traffic free much of the day. I crossed over it two or three times daily from the time I was six to walk to Glen Lenox or Glenwood School. By the time I was eight I had a Schwinn bicycle which I rode all over Chapel Hill. I had several friends who lived on Morgan Creek Road, one in Highland Woods, and two in Glen Lenox who I would bike over to see. I rode the the majority of the way on the side of 15-501.

My friends and me in my front yard on Old Mill Road in Chapel Hill, having a snowball fight, January 1958. Every year growing up we had at least one heavy snowfall. There were always many large snowmen in people's yards, and many of the fraternities in town created magnificent snow sculptures. The best place to ride our sleds was from the top of Stagecoach Road.

It seems that I always had a job or some other means of making money. When I was seven I collected empty discarded bottles along roadways within a mile radius of my house in a red wagon I pulled behind me. I could often collect several hundred bottles a week which I would redeem at the Colonial Store in Glen Lenox for two cents each. During football season I sold bottled drinks out of a bucket of ice as I walked up and down the stairs of Kenan Stadium. I also sold programs and pennants outside the stadium before the game began. The longest employment of my youth was delivering the Chapel Hill Weekly (then published twice a week on Wednesday and Sunday) from 1961 to 1964. My route encompassed all of Greenwood, as well as the Gimghoul area, and Country Club Road all the way down Laurel Hill Road to 15-501.

Charles Mann at five years old: My mother made entries about my interests and activities from time to time. For better or worse, all these attributes still apply to me.

Marked in blue is my twice-weekly Chapel Weekly paper route from 1961 - 1964

I cherish the town and people I grew up with. Chapel Hill was a small town and people not only knew all their neighbors, they knew almost everyone in their neighborhood. Greenwood, where I grew up, was made up of over 75 families. Everyone was married and had at least one kid. I never met anyone who even had a parent who had been divorced until 1962, and she lived with her father and stepmother. I can still remember the last names of all my neighbors, and the first names of most them. Neighbors were also people your parents socialized with on a regular basis. People often dropped by to talk for an hour or more. Many women were members of afternoon bridge clubs that rotated to a different house each week. Many people had dogs, and their dogs ran free (no fences). More amazingly, I played in the woods and most of the yards in Greenwood, and never recall seeing dog excrement anywhere. I've long suspected that dogs naturally find very out of the way places to do their business when given the chance.

I'm having a picnic lunch with my friend Terry Golden who brought along his little sister Maureen Golden in the stripped shirt. I'm topless and my sister, Carol, is sitting in front of my bicycle. This is from June of 1956.

Wherever you went in Chapel Hill in the 1950s you recognized most of the faces you saw, and they were always friendly. More often than not people not only said hello, but actually engaged in a little conversation to catch up, even when pushing a cart down an aisle at Fowler's grocery store. As I grew older I sometimes saw people I did not recognize. By the late 1960s Chapel Hill had grown and changed so much that most people I saw were now unfamiliar. Nevertheless in every store or along Franklin Street there were always some faces you knew. By the mid-1970s (when the University Mall opened) I would often guess how many people I would run into who I knew when I went shopping. In the beginning it was always over ten, but by the late 80s it was often down to one or none. Things had really changed.

Old Mill Road in Chapel Hill was gravel until 1960 when it was paved and had guttering put down.

These two pictures are of me, Charles Mann, on January 1, 1951 (age 2) creating Old Mill Road in the Greenwood neighborhood of Chapel Hill. My parents built two homes here. One was finished in the Spring of 1951, and the other next door in 1954. The latter house is on the east side of Old Mill, next to the intersection with Arrowhead Road, and the other is next door, across from where Stagecoach Road intersects with Old Mill.

Today many people prefer the anonymity of a large and impersonal city, but for me, I would not want to grow up anyplace else or in any era than Chapel Hill when I did. 

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by Charly Mann

The University of North Carolina during World War II was primarily a women's college. Almost all college aged men in the United States were serving in the armed forces. Men were still everywhere on campus, but they were cadets dressed in khaki. Most were enrolled in accelerated Navy military training programs so they could be rapidly deployed to combat. In fact there were so many Navy men in training at the University that most slept four to a room if they could find accommodations in Chapel Hill. Many had to find housing in Durham.

This is the typical distribution of women to men among the University of North Carolina's 1944 graduating class

During 1942 and 1943 the town's businesses could barely handle all these new residents. There were long lines at almost every restaurant, and the cadets in training often fell asleep waiting in line to get food. There was often resentment among Chapel Hill's permanent residents about these Navy men because they were not considered students or townspeople.

Squadrons of airplanes flying over Chapel Hill were normal during World War II. Until 1942, when Airport Road was built, the road to Horace William Airport was very curvy and dangerous to drive.

The women who were Carolina's only real students had no real aspirations of getting an education where they could find a career after graduation. Most wanted nothing more than for the war to end and the men to return to civilian life. Then they expected to get married and raise their children. Over the years, I have talked to more than a dozen women who attended UNC during the war years and all of them said they found tremendous satisfaction being mothers, and that for the most part their lives had been very happy.

These women dreamed that after the war they would live happily ever after as mothers and wives, and most of them did. I wonder how many women today dream the same dream.

It is hard to imagine that there was ever a restaurant over the Carolina Theater, but during the War years every space avilable was used to sell food. Atter the war, the upstairs contained Carrington Smith's, the manager's, office, and the room for the movie projector. The restrooms were also upstairs.

 
This is a list of the University of North Caroina students killed or missing in action in 1943

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by Charly Mann

Chapel Hill has been the Southern Part Of Heaven since a book of that name was published in 1950 by William Meade Prince (1893-1951). Prince grew up in Chapel Hill, and was an accomplished illustrator. The book is an illustrated story about his youth in Chapel Hill at the turn of the 20th century. In subsequent installments on this website I will publish some excerpts from it.

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by Charly Mann

Chapel Hill did not become a legally recogonized town until 1854. There would be no Chapel Hill if the General Assembly of North Carolina in 1789 had not wanted to establish a state University that was centrally located and easily accessed from all parts of the state. When state surveyors convened on the area that is now Chapel Hill, all that was there was deep forest and the ruins of an old church. The location was almost exactly in the center of the then populated areas of the state.

Davie laying the cornerstone for Old East

Four years later, on a warm Saturday afternoon on October 12, 1793, dignitaries from across the state came to lay the cornestone for the first building of the new university. Bright red maples adorned the grounds where this momentous ceremony was held. The name of that building was North Wing; later changed to Old East. On this same day, the state sold lots around the the future university site for what it hoped would be a village where faculty and merchants would reside. The area had no official name, and was then then referred to as New Hope. A few years later when the first map of the state was created that included the future Chapel Hill, the mapmaker designated the place as University.

 
What will become Chapel Hill is simply known as "University" on this 1790 map

The University did not open its doors until February 1795. When the first students arrived, the entire area that was to be the university and Chapel Hill was forest wilderness, with just a single completed building. Students had difficulty getting to the University because the roads within a 25 mile radius were so bad. The tuition for the first year was between $8 and $15 depending on one's chosen major. The only professor was the Reverend David Ker, then 36, who was previously the pastor of a Presbyerian church in Fayetteville. He was paid $300 a year. There was also a tutor specializing in mathemetics who received $100 a year.

Old East in 1799 (Which was only completed building on campus then)

In those early years students paid about $30 for a room and meals. Breakfast was served at 8:00 AM, and the board of trustees mandated that it include "sufficient quantities of good coffee and tea, or chocolate." It also included bread with butter. Lunch, then known as dinner, was the big meal of the day and served at 1:00 PM. It included bacon, which students claimed was almost all fat, as well as fresh meat, puddings, tarts, greens, turnips, along with wheat and corn bread. The evening meal was called supper, and was served around sunset. That meal included milk, tea, or coffee, along with potatoes and some form of bread and vegetables when they were available.

I would not be surprised if we all followed the eating habits of these first Chapel Hillians, and only ate one large meal in the middle of the day, that few of us would have weight problems.

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by Charly Mann

 
Franklin Street (Downtown) 1894

Central Franklin Street was lined with an assortment of poorly constructed stores that looked more like shacks until about 1920. After a fire that destroyed most of the stores on the north side of the street, buildings made of brick began sprouting up. By 1935 Franklin Street achieved the look that it maintained until 1971, when the NCNB Plaza was built and became the main eyesore of downtown.

Franklin Street looking toward Amber Alley 1924

Until 1925, Franklin Street was often a large mud puddle after any rain. Horse drawn carts were still a common site into the late 1920's. A center strip of pavement was placed on the street during this time to accommodate an ever-increasing number of automobiles, though there was still at least ten feet of dirt on either side of the paved area. Long time Chapel Hill resident and playwright Paul Green recalled that throughout most of the 1920's only one member of the UNC faculty owned a car.

Carolina Theater 1926 - Now location of the Varsity Theater

During the Depression you could get a great meal at the New Deal Café, located at 175 E Franklin, for 50 cents. The Carolina Theater charged 20 cents for movie admission. Later this theater would become the Varsity Theater, when The Carolina moved across the street in 1927 to where the Gap is now. The new Carolina Theater had 1,145 seats, until 1971, when the theater was split into a two-screen. The last movie to play at the Carolina was The March of the Penguins in July 2005.

Carolina Theater 1963, Integration Protest (note  the title and star of this movie)

In the 1940's, Chapel Hill became enchanted with Williamsburg architecture, and all of the buildings on the north side of Franklin Street were rebuilt or remodeled to reflect this style. You can also see that style in several of the Fraternity Houses built during this period. The first record store in town opened during that time too, called Abernethy’s Records.

Danziger Candy Shop 1940

In the 1950's, perhaps the most popular place to gather on Franklin Street was the Goody Shop. It had great cheeseburgers, served beer and the talk there was almost exclusively reserved for Carolina Sports. Spero Dorton, the owner, had a passion for Carolina basketball and football, and it was long the location for team dinners before any home game.

North Downtown Franklin Street 1940s (note the Williamsburg architecture)

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This is a 1931 Flyer

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