Thanks to our partners at Margaret and James Harper, Jr. Library in Southport, North Carolina, more issues of the State Port Pilot are now on DigitalNC. These eighteen issues stretch from 1992 to New Years Eve of 1999. They will join an existing collection of over twenty-five hundred issues already findable online at DigitalNC, stretching from 1935 to 1999.

The State Port Pilot was a weekly publication based out of Southport, North Carolina, that served Brunswick County with local news and events around coastal North Carolina. The issues included in this batch are beautiful encapsulations of small-town life in North Carolina, with each issue having sections titled “Not Exactly News,” ideas for cartoons without artists to draw them, and strongly opinionated letters to the editor. The standout issue of this new batch has to be the issue published on December 29, 1999, which reflects the hopes, dreams, and anxieties of the looming millennium. Featured articles in this issue include reports on Y2K electronics monitoring, retrospectives on the past century of history, and a series titled “Focus

Interested in learning more about Southport History? You can find our partners at the Margaret and James Harper, Jr. Library in Southport online at DigitalNC here, or on their website here. Thanks again to our spectacular partners at the Harper Library for making this collection available!

Thanks to our partner, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a batch containing 1980-1981 issues of the college’s student newspaper are now available.

While similar to previous batches of The Carolina Journal with articles voicing frustrations with campus parking and coverage of popular campus events such as Jam-Up, this batch is set apart by its coverage of the aftermath of the Greensboro Massacre (Greensboro Klan-Nazi) trial on at least two North Carolina college campuses including UNC-Charlotte and UNC Chapel Hill.

On November 3, 1979 in Greensboro, the Communist Workers Party (CWP) held the “Death to the Klan” march. At the march, members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and American Nazi Party (ANP) killed five participants. A year after the incident, which has sense become known as the Greensboro Massacre, the six individuals charged with first-degree murder and felony riot in the Greensboro Klan-Nazi trial were acquitted. In its November 20, 1980 issue, the UNCC’s student newspaper reported little reaction to the acquittal which had been announced three days earlier.

Less than a week later, however, UNCC’s Black Student Union and Student Body Government sponsored a rally to protest the verdict of the trial. Noted speakers at the rally included President of the Black Student Union, Mike Kemp; Charlotte Equal Rights Council Member, Cary Graves; Student Body President, Ron Olsen; and sociology professors Drs. Michael Pearson and Ray Michalowski. In their speeches, they discussed the consequences of the outcome, North Carolina law and history, and the meaning of justice. The newspaper continues to publish articles about the impacts of the trial outcome—both in the state and on-campus—as well as related topics, throughout the remainder of the school year.

To learn more about the Greensboro Massacre, view UNC Greensboro’s project “March for Justice: Documenting the Greensboro Massacre” and UNC’s “Researching the Greensboro Massacre at Wilson Library.“

To learn more about the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.

Our partners at the Transylvania County Library have contributed a trove of company newspapers that we are excited to make available on DigitalNC. The Ecusta Paper Mill operated in Brevard, North Carolina from 1939 to 2002, specializing in cigarette paper and cellophane. The paper mill was a major economic force in the region, employing thousands of Transylvania County residents. From 1949 to 1987, the plant was owned and operated by Olin Industries. During this period, the plant published a newspaper covering events, programs, and people at the Ecusta Paper Mill. We have digitized exactly 99 issues of the newspaper, known as both The Olin News and The Olin Profile, dating from 1967 to 1985. The Olin News covers 1967-1979, while The Olin Profile covers 1980-1985. Visitors to the site will find this newspaper to be a rich resource for researching the history of the Ecusta Paper Mill and the people who worked there.

The 2002 closure of the mill sent shockwaves through the community, where it had become an institution over the course of six decades. Brevard has since rebounded by leaning into tourism centered on its natural resources and beautiful mountain landscapes. Today the former site of the Ecusta Paper Mill is home to Ecusta Brewing Company and an in-progress 19-mile greenway that will eventually connect Brevard, Penrose, Etowah, Horse Shoe, the Town of Laurel Park, and the City of Hendersonville. It is also a Superfund redevelopment site, with work focusing on depolluting the Davidson River and reclaiming the area for recreational use.

The Transylvania County Library has contributed over one thousand yearbooks, city directories, photographs, and more, as well as seven newspaper titles. View all of their digitized materials on DigitalNC at their contributor page here, and visit their website here to learn more.