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UNC, Chapel Hill, and Carborro History
- Thread starter donbosco
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“Integrationists” in that headline wasn’t exactly a compliment.
May 25, 1963: ~350 people marched to protest segregated businesses.
Leftists some would call them.
May 1963 “Liberal” Chapel Hill was a segregated, rascist town.
We moved to Chapel Hill in 1967.
We NEVER ate at Brady’s. Why? The bigoted owners.
We never ate at The Pines….even when my well-off grandfather came to town or after my Dad’s career took off. Why? The owners were bigots.
We did eat at the Danzigers’s restaurants - why? They were good and the owners weren’t bigots.
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We did not either
donbosco
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My brother (now a trumper) took me to Brady's when I was a senior in high school and had been accepted to Carolina. We went with one of the other Realtors that he worked with at the time. He was a grizzled old storyteller and I was regaled with the "Total Chapel Hill-ness" of Brady's to the degree that I left thinking it was one of the town's sacred spots. This was 1976.
Flash forward to the first week living in the dorm (Everett) and Freshman-me is being included in a big group dinner junket.Upperclassmen had cars just outside in the N-4 lot. I mentioned Brady's as a destination expecting it to be under consideration. My dorm, despite its North Campus location was somewhat integrated as was the junket group. Frowns appeared and one of the wise juniors tasked with teaching the freshmen declared Brady's a 'no go.' Later he informed me about the racism there. He also let me know the scoop on Colonial Drug should I wander that far down Franklin.
Eventually I read John Ehle's The Freemen and learned a good bit more about the full story. I recommend it highly for anyone interested in the history of the town of their Alma Mater. You'll learn some horrible things about Watts Grill outside of town on the road to Pittsboro in that read.
www.press53.com
Flash forward to the first week living in the dorm (Everett) and Freshman-me is being included in a big group dinner junket.Upperclassmen had cars just outside in the N-4 lot. I mentioned Brady's as a destination expecting it to be under consideration. My dorm, despite its North Campus location was somewhat integrated as was the junket group. Frowns appeared and one of the wise juniors tasked with teaching the freshmen declared Brady's a 'no go.' Later he informed me about the racism there. He also let me know the scoop on Colonial Drug should I wander that far down Franklin.
Eventually I read John Ehle's The Freemen and learned a good bit more about the full story. I recommend it highly for anyone interested in the history of the town of their Alma Mater. You'll learn some horrible things about Watts Grill outside of town on the road to Pittsboro in that read.
The Free Men by John Ehle (Nonfiction) — Press 53
Carolina Classics Editions ISBN 978-0-9793049-1-0 9 x 6 softcover, 376 pages Originally published 1965 by Harper & Row, New York, NY
www.press53.com
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My mother actually was a very good cook. But she did not enjoy cooking and her cooking ability was NOT how she chose to self-identify. So, usually the fare she served was plain and easy/quick to fix. Which was why anytime we had guests for dinner, we kids were on our best behavior, lest we be banished from the house and miss the scrumptious feast that she had prepared for the guests.
donbosco
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Trees Are History
Refugium: Meet Downtown Chapel Hill’s Street Trees, Part 1 - Chapelboro.com
I'd like y’all to stroll a bit around downtown Chapel Hill. The trees are waking and I thought it might be nice for us to pause and give them a listen.chapelboro.com
Refugium: Meet Downtown Chapel Hill’s Street Trees, Part 2 - Chapelboro.com
The trees I’m showing you today were not the trees the older cats who I drank with at the Carolina Coffee Shop 30 years ago took a moment to pause under perhaps to steady themselves for the slow amble home.
chapelboro.com
donbosco
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This one is from the heart.
Sometimes I manage a return to Chapel Hill — Those times are pilgrimages of a sort for me and I never see nearly even close to all of the people so dear to my heart in that timeless place. I love Chapel Hill/Carrboro and it holds magic for me in so many ways. I walk the streets, sidewalks, and brick pathways, and history, personal and public, swells up in my mind and soul of souls. I romanticize. Of that there is no doubt. I lived in Chapel Hill from 1976 to 1983 and then again from 1986 to 2009. It is my truest home and my heart is there in so many ways. In recent trips I have gone to campus at dawn with the dogs and I have taken joy in their eternal sense of exploration as we walked beneath the giant trees and across lawns that have been trod by so many infused with hope for 200+ years. They remind me of my own exuberant first days and weeks in August of 1976. Going back to the mind of Freshman-Me is itself renewing.
I am well aware that there are sordid chapters in my Alma Mater’s story though I admit that I was not always so enlightened. Events both distant in time and recent have been shameful and hurtful and have pained so very many. I am also glad, even grateful, for the great many positives that UNC has brought forth across time. Like a family member who strays yet remains beloved so too is Carolina for me.
These days the helm once captained by Frank Porter Graham and necessarily lesser folk but nevertheless well-intentioned educators has been captured by a gang uninterested in broadening but rather in narrowing ways of seeing…in making small what has most often been far-reaching. From afar I watch with great love and interest as thinkers and do-ers at my Alma Mater struggle - as they have done through other dark times when weak minds with a monopoly on force have worked to diminish the spirit of the place. I do fear this time that the darkness is stronger than in a very long time and that the struggle afore all who care is nigh Sisyphean - and cross-generational. Lux Libertas friends - we’re not in this alone. The fight is on North, South, East, and West - from Manteo to Murphy, Asheville to Atlantic Beach, and Boone to Beaufort. So too is the battle on state by state. The goal of the Darkness is to close the mind and kill the ideas. These days almost all of our colleges and universities are under attack. Alma Maters bend under the weight of misrepresentation born of a not-unfamiliar ill-will. Creativity, imagination, and hard work has never been more needed for this battle is essentially one of Truth-David fending off The Propaganda-Goliath. May 1 Samuel Inspire and serve as blueprint in these times of challenge.
The photo below is of Bynum Hall, originally the home gymnasium for Tar Heel men’s Basketball. Between 1910 and 1924 UNC WAS 61-15 in this building. So a precedent of success at that most beautiful game was set right there. Bynum was where you paid bills during my time at Carolina and ultimately where I submitted the final copy of my dissertation in 1999. That last function was far more tense than it ought to have been because the manuscript had to pass inspection by the Office of the Secretary of the Graduate School located there, who was not the least bit interested in content but rather proper margins, headers, and footers — any of which we were warned, if improperly rendered were bound to stall the doctorate in its tracks. For a time the Journalism Department lived in Bynum and plenty still remember the University Cashier office there. Today there is a fountain in front but when I was an undergrad that spot was occupied by a very simple volleyball court at which every Friday afternoon scholars met and very informal games were played. Bynum Hall is a bit of a microcosm of Carolina if you know the history of the place. It helps I guess to have lived some of it too. May Light Prevail Over The Current Darkness. Lux Libertas.
Sometimes I manage a return to Chapel Hill — Those times are pilgrimages of a sort for me and I never see nearly even close to all of the people so dear to my heart in that timeless place. I love Chapel Hill/Carrboro and it holds magic for me in so many ways. I walk the streets, sidewalks, and brick pathways, and history, personal and public, swells up in my mind and soul of souls. I romanticize. Of that there is no doubt. I lived in Chapel Hill from 1976 to 1983 and then again from 1986 to 2009. It is my truest home and my heart is there in so many ways. In recent trips I have gone to campus at dawn with the dogs and I have taken joy in their eternal sense of exploration as we walked beneath the giant trees and across lawns that have been trod by so many infused with hope for 200+ years. They remind me of my own exuberant first days and weeks in August of 1976. Going back to the mind of Freshman-Me is itself renewing.
I am well aware that there are sordid chapters in my Alma Mater’s story though I admit that I was not always so enlightened. Events both distant in time and recent have been shameful and hurtful and have pained so very many. I am also glad, even grateful, for the great many positives that UNC has brought forth across time. Like a family member who strays yet remains beloved so too is Carolina for me.
These days the helm once captained by Frank Porter Graham and necessarily lesser folk but nevertheless well-intentioned educators has been captured by a gang uninterested in broadening but rather in narrowing ways of seeing…in making small what has most often been far-reaching. From afar I watch with great love and interest as thinkers and do-ers at my Alma Mater struggle - as they have done through other dark times when weak minds with a monopoly on force have worked to diminish the spirit of the place. I do fear this time that the darkness is stronger than in a very long time and that the struggle afore all who care is nigh Sisyphean - and cross-generational. Lux Libertas friends - we’re not in this alone. The fight is on North, South, East, and West - from Manteo to Murphy, Asheville to Atlantic Beach, and Boone to Beaufort. So too is the battle on state by state. The goal of the Darkness is to close the mind and kill the ideas. These days almost all of our colleges and universities are under attack. Alma Maters bend under the weight of misrepresentation born of a not-unfamiliar ill-will. Creativity, imagination, and hard work has never been more needed for this battle is essentially one of Truth-David fending off The Propaganda-Goliath. May 1 Samuel Inspire and serve as blueprint in these times of challenge.
The photo below is of Bynum Hall, originally the home gymnasium for Tar Heel men’s Basketball. Between 1910 and 1924 UNC WAS 61-15 in this building. So a precedent of success at that most beautiful game was set right there. Bynum was where you paid bills during my time at Carolina and ultimately where I submitted the final copy of my dissertation in 1999. That last function was far more tense than it ought to have been because the manuscript had to pass inspection by the Office of the Secretary of the Graduate School located there, who was not the least bit interested in content but rather proper margins, headers, and footers — any of which we were warned, if improperly rendered were bound to stall the doctorate in its tracks. For a time the Journalism Department lived in Bynum and plenty still remember the University Cashier office there. Today there is a fountain in front but when I was an undergrad that spot was occupied by a very simple volleyball court at which every Friday afternoon scholars met and very informal games were played. Bynum Hall is a bit of a microcosm of Carolina if you know the history of the place. It helps I guess to have lived some of it too. May Light Prevail Over The Current Darkness. Lux Libertas.
donbosco
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A Long Lost Campus Cemetery? A Child's Grave Beneath Abernathy Hall? I fancy myself pretty well-versed on the history of UNC but I've never, ever heard of this. "The Mitchell cemetery was originally located behind the First President's House, built in 1795 and demolished/moved in 1913 when Swain Hall was constructed on the property."...And there is much more at the link...
openorangenc.org
MITCHELL CEMETERY (SITE) | Open Orange
openorangenc.org
donbosco
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From Edwin Yoder i
"Edwin Milton Yoder Jr. was born on July 18, 1934. He was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in English in 1956. Yoder then won a Rhodes Scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford, and studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics from 1956 to 1958.> While at Oxford, Yoder was a member of the Oxford University basketball team with teammates Willie Morris and Paul Sarbanes. He was then an editorial writer for various newspapers including the Charlotte News, the Greensboro Daily News and the Washington Star. During his time at the Washington Star, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 1979. He was a columnist on The Washington Post from 1982. In 1992, he was appointed Professor of Humanities at Washington and Lee University. He was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of Jesus College, Oxford, in 1998. He died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on November 30, 2023, at the age of 89."
FROM SEPTEMBER, 1975
"Southern Liberalism
by Our Readers
To the Editor:
I was both impressed and intrigued by Michael Novak’s article, “Tom Wicker’s Attica” [May]. I have not yet read A Time To Die, and can neither endorse nor question the severity of his judgment upon it. I suspect that it is not unwarranted.
Tom Wicker is an old and admired friend of mine; but I am often puzzled—and sometimes, I admit, irritated—by his tendency to mar otherwise penetrating and generous comment (I think, for instance, of his tributes to the constitutional conservatism of Sam Ervin, Jr.) by hat-tipping to conventional Yankee liberals. He does seem to obey, occasionally, a mysterious compulsion not merely to let his opinions speak on their merits, but to establish his bona fides with certain non-Southerners to whom he might, on account of his regional origins, be suspect.
The main point of this letter, however, is to urge Mr. Novak to deepen his perception of Southern liberalism, so-called. He writes, for instance, that “it is characteristic of Southern liberals that they have come late to liberal attitudes on race . . . [and] usually, they can date to the day and hour the first time they touched a black, embraced a black, etc.” Not so, I think. This may be peculiarly true of Tom Wicker. For my part, I have lived on intimate (if initially paternalistic) terms with blacks since early childhood; and I regard my views, such as they are, as forming a continuum of consciousness. I also regard them, by the way, as having little to do with political correctness or fashion and much to do with the decencies of human behavior to which our best religious and political traditions enjoin us. I think Mr. Novak would be told essentially the same thing by hundreds of sentient Southerners whose views on race are “liberal” as the world judges such things, but who have not felt sufficiently guilt-stricken to commerce with or sentimentalize the “revolutionary theater” that, in Mr. Novak’s view, preempted Tom Wicker’s good judgment at Attica.
Indeed, Mr. Novak lumps together people like Willie Morris and Ramsey Clark, along with Wicker, although to my mind there is no discernible resemblance between Willie Morris’s historically-minded and fine-textured perceptions of blacks and the more shallow, conventional, and defensive attitudes which Mr. Novak attributes to the “Southern liberal” as a type.
I urge Mr. Novak to reexamine the finer pages of Morris’s North Toward Home and Yazoo, as well as C. Vann Woodward’s relevant essays, and see if he does not find there a searching honesty, a dry light, that bears little likeness to the conventional liberal-chic he rightly deplores. By the same token, there are worlds of difference between, say, Vernon Jordan and Jesse Jackson—although both are indeed Southerners.
It was until quite recently assumed by many non-Southerners that the South is monolithic, while in fact it is a mosaic of distinguishable attitudes and political subcultures; and it is regrettable that a writer of Mr. Novak’s quality and standards should reinforce, anew, the myth that Southerners (even Southern liberals) are all alike. Otherwise, his observations seem to me both timely and penetrating; and I suspect they will have a profound effect on us all.
"Edwin Milton Yoder Jr. was born on July 18, 1934. He was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating in English in 1956. Yoder then won a Rhodes Scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford, and studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics from 1956 to 1958.> While at Oxford, Yoder was a member of the Oxford University basketball team with teammates Willie Morris and Paul Sarbanes. He was then an editorial writer for various newspapers including the Charlotte News, the Greensboro Daily News and the Washington Star. During his time at the Washington Star, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 1979. He was a columnist on The Washington Post from 1982. In 1992, he was appointed Professor of Humanities at Washington and Lee University. He was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of Jesus College, Oxford, in 1998. He died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on November 30, 2023, at the age of 89."
FROM SEPTEMBER, 1975
"Southern Liberalism
by Our Readers
To the Editor:
I was both impressed and intrigued by Michael Novak’s article, “Tom Wicker’s Attica” [May]. I have not yet read A Time To Die, and can neither endorse nor question the severity of his judgment upon it. I suspect that it is not unwarranted.
Tom Wicker is an old and admired friend of mine; but I am often puzzled—and sometimes, I admit, irritated—by his tendency to mar otherwise penetrating and generous comment (I think, for instance, of his tributes to the constitutional conservatism of Sam Ervin, Jr.) by hat-tipping to conventional Yankee liberals. He does seem to obey, occasionally, a mysterious compulsion not merely to let his opinions speak on their merits, but to establish his bona fides with certain non-Southerners to whom he might, on account of his regional origins, be suspect.
The main point of this letter, however, is to urge Mr. Novak to deepen his perception of Southern liberalism, so-called. He writes, for instance, that “it is characteristic of Southern liberals that they have come late to liberal attitudes on race . . . [and] usually, they can date to the day and hour the first time they touched a black, embraced a black, etc.” Not so, I think. This may be peculiarly true of Tom Wicker. For my part, I have lived on intimate (if initially paternalistic) terms with blacks since early childhood; and I regard my views, such as they are, as forming a continuum of consciousness. I also regard them, by the way, as having little to do with political correctness or fashion and much to do with the decencies of human behavior to which our best religious and political traditions enjoin us. I think Mr. Novak would be told essentially the same thing by hundreds of sentient Southerners whose views on race are “liberal” as the world judges such things, but who have not felt sufficiently guilt-stricken to commerce with or sentimentalize the “revolutionary theater” that, in Mr. Novak’s view, preempted Tom Wicker’s good judgment at Attica.
Indeed, Mr. Novak lumps together people like Willie Morris and Ramsey Clark, along with Wicker, although to my mind there is no discernible resemblance between Willie Morris’s historically-minded and fine-textured perceptions of blacks and the more shallow, conventional, and defensive attitudes which Mr. Novak attributes to the “Southern liberal” as a type.
I urge Mr. Novak to reexamine the finer pages of Morris’s North Toward Home and Yazoo, as well as C. Vann Woodward’s relevant essays, and see if he does not find there a searching honesty, a dry light, that bears little likeness to the conventional liberal-chic he rightly deplores. By the same token, there are worlds of difference between, say, Vernon Jordan and Jesse Jackson—although both are indeed Southerners.
It was until quite recently assumed by many non-Southerners that the South is monolithic, while in fact it is a mosaic of distinguishable attitudes and political subcultures; and it is regrettable that a writer of Mr. Novak’s quality and standards should reinforce, anew, the myth that Southerners (even Southern liberals) are all alike. Otherwise, his observations seem to me both timely and penetrating; and I suspect they will have a profound effect on us all.
Edwin M. Yoder, Jr.
Greensboro, North Carolina"
www.commentary.org
Greensboro, North Carolina"
Southern Liberalism
To the Editor: I was both impressed and intrigued by Michael Novak's article, “Tom Wicker's Attica” . I have not yet read A Time To Die, and can neither endorse
www.commentary.org
donbosco
Inconceivable Member
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It is DexFest this weekend...a commemoration of the Life and Times and Music of Dexter Romweber, perhaps Chapel Hill/Carrboro's greatest musical savant among so very many.
From 'The Carrboro Citizen' in 2012..."It wasn’t long ago that a walk through downtown was nearly impossible without taking in some kind of performance. You might see Dexter Romweber singing the blues out in front of The Hardback Cafe or The Chicken Wire Gang harmonizing near the entrance to Pepper’s Pizza. There’d be a guy playing sax in the alley and a couple of avant-garde fellow travelers making notes ring in the Rosemary Street Parking Deck. A lot more places had music outdoors as well, or would at least open up the windows and let the sound pour out into the street."
BIG CITY: More music, more life – The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
From 'The Carrboro Citizen' in 2012..."It wasn’t long ago that a walk through downtown was nearly impossible without taking in some kind of performance. You might see Dexter Romweber singing the blues out in front of The Hardback Cafe or The Chicken Wire Gang harmonizing near the entrance to Pepper’s Pizza. There’d be a guy playing sax in the alley and a couple of avant-garde fellow travelers making notes ring in the Rosemary Street Parking Deck. A lot more places had music outdoors as well, or would at least open up the windows and let the sound pour out into the street."
BIG CITY: More music, more life – The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
I was in that coffee place in Carrboro…..it’s a large coffee place and it does or did serve wine……
It faces South Greensboro Street between Neal’s Deli and that side street that runs along the side of the new library building. Roberson?
This was something like 2014-15-16.
A guy sat down next to me and he had an electric guitar…..he was working on it……
Something about him struck me as familiar.
I’d never known Dexter. I was CHHS 1980 and he was ‘83, ‘84, or ‘85. We weren’t in high school or Jr. High together.
I’d known his Flat Duo Jets partner, Crow (Chris Smith), since he and I lived on Wesley Drive in Chapel Hill’s Colonial Heights.
My family and Crow’s were tight.
I knew that Crow and Dexter had had MULTIPLE falling outs - drug and alcohol infused. IIRC, they added Kevin Mayer to the Jets because Kevin could sometimes keep Dexter and Chris (Crow) from fighting…….on stage.
While we were sitting next to one another…….I started asking him questions……..generic ones……within 10 or so minutes I knew he was Dexter Romweber.
I introduced myself and said I’d known Crow from ages before Crow played.
Dexter was the nicest guy. He asked about Crow and I told him he was in a recovery program and in touch with his Dad, brother, and daughter.
Dex was happy with that.
It was 10 or 11 in the morning and Dexter looked like a horse ridden long and hard and put up wet.
He was a talented, talented guy!