Carolina Times Story on Pauli Murray Arrest in 1940

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Nick Graham

newspapers

Friday’s @ncdhc headline, from the Carolina Times, describes the arrest of two women on a Greyhound bus in Virginia in 1940: “Jim-Crow Bus Dispute Leads To Girls Arrest.”  One of the women arrested was Pauli Murray.

Murray, who had lost a battle to enroll in the University of North Carolina in 1938, was living in New York at the time and was returning home to recover from an illness.  She and Adelene McBean were arrested for their refusal to move to the back of the bus when asked by the driver.  This was fourteen years before a similar incident in Montgomery, Alabama launched a nationwide movement, and just one of many occasions on which Pauli Murray fought against injustice.

 

Murray, described in the Carolina Times article as a “honey-tongued legal mind,” was an author, lawyer, activist, and Episcopal priest who grew up in Durham.  Her life and work is celebrated today by the Pauli Murray Project at the Duke Human Rights Center.

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Yearbook Photos of North Carolina Gubernatorial Candidates

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Nick Graham

yearbooks

As three of the candidates for the Democratic party nomination for Governor ramp up their campaigns, I decided to check the North Carolina College and University Yearbooks collection to see if I could find photos from their college days.

Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton received his B.S. from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1971. This photo is from the 1971 Yackety Yack.

 

Former U.S. Representative Bob Etheridge graduated from Campbell University in 1965. This photo, from the 1965 Pine Burr, is one of many of “Bobby” Etheridge, who was the Senior Class Vice President, a member of the Honor Court, and a star on the Campbell basketball team.

 

State Representative Bill Faison graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with an AB in 1969, overlapping with Dalton by a few years. This photo is from the 1969 Yackety Yack.

 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any yearbook photo for likely Republican nominee Pat McCrory. McCrory graduated from Catawba College in Salisbury, and the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center has not yet worked with Catawba on yearbook digitization.

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Supplement Your 1940 Census Research With North Carolina City Directories

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Nick Graham

directories

As researchers around the country begin to dig in to the 1940 census records released today by the National Archives, many will be looking for supplemental information to help locate ancestors in the as-yet-unindexed records.  City directories are a great place to start.

The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center has digitized directories for 1940 from 20 different cities and towns. These are part of the growing North Carolina City Directories digital collection. You can also browse our collection of city directories from 1940.

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Womanless Weddings

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Nick Graham

photos

Today’s @ncnewspapers headline, from Raeford in 1953, reads “Lions Club Plans Womanless Wedding.” While womanless weddings of a different sort are in the news these days as North Carolina prepares to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment, the event mentioned in the headline was a popular form of entertainment in small towns a few decades ago.

A “womanless wedding” was usually held as a fundraiser and involved prominent men of the community dressing up in full bridal outfits for a mock wedding ceremony. From the stories I’ve heard, it was common practice to get the burliest man in town to play the part of the bride, backed up by a train of equally rough-looking bridesmaids.

I found a couple of newspaper photos of womanless weddings in the DigitalNC collection. The first is from Burgaw in 1957 and was held as a fundraiser for the local high school (from the Burgaw Jaycees Scrapbook, 1957-1958, contributed by the Pender County Public Library). The second is from a Bennett College fundraiser in 1974 (from the Bennett College Scrapbook, 1972-1977).

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