Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation Records #3823, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Sometime after the closing of the NCCIC offices in 1949, these papers came into the possession of Guy B. Johnson, professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Johnson transferred them to the Southern Historical Collection in September 1969.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: SHC Staff, 1983, and Jessica Sedgwick, August 2008

Encoded by: Jessica Sedgwick, August 2008

Updated by: Amanda Loeb, March 2012; Nancy Kaiser, March 2021

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• African Americans--Education--North Carolina.
• African Americans--North Carolina--Economic conditions.
• African Americans--North Carolina--Religion.
• African Americans--North Carolina--Social conditions.
• African Americans--North Carolina.
• Commission on Interracial Cooperation.
• Hamlet (N.C.)--History.
• Libraries and minorities--United States.
• Lynching--North Carolina.
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
• North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation.
• North Carolina Council on Human Relations--History.
• North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company.
• North Carolina--Race relations.
• Pender County (N.C.)--History.
• Race relations--Societies, etc.
• Southern Regional Council.

• See also Gordon Gray papers (#3824), Howard Washington Odum papers (#3167), North Carolina Council on Human Relations records (#3823), Guy B. Johnson interview (B-0006/1) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An audio recording and transcripts for the interview is available through Documenting the American South's Oral Histories of the American South (http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/B-0006/menu.html).

Following World War I, a group of southern churchmen established the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, based in Atlanta, Ga., to work toward improved race relations in the South. In 1921, a group of North Carolinians founded the North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation as a state affiliate of the CIC. With the governor as honorary chair, the group had quasi-official status. The NCCIC's first chair was William Louis Poteat, president of Wake Forest College, and its first director was L. R. Reynolds. Reynold's office was in Richmond, Va.; he was director of both the NCCIC and the Virginia CIC from 1920 to 1942.

The NCCIC, like its parent organization, sought both to alleviate injustices and to change prejudiced racial attitudes. Its efforts included meetings with individuals, correspondence, press releases, radio programs, pamphlets, local meetings, and state-wide conferences. It also encouraged the development of affiliated local committees, and by 1935, 50 such organizations were operating. The NCCIC was initially made up of a small group of prominent individuals, both African American and white, and mostly ministers and educators. The membership grew to 2,500 at its height, with representatives from every county and major town in the state. Chairs in the 1930s and 1940s included Professor Howard Odum and Episcopal Bishop Edwin Pennick. Directors who followed Reynolds were Reverend Ernest Arnold and Cyrus M. Johnson.

After World War II, various problems, perhaps most importantly internal disagreement over desegregation, led to the closing of the NCCIC offices in 1949. The organization continued to exist skeletally, and in 1951 technically became an affiliate of the Southern Regional Council. In the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954, the NCCIC was reorganized. In 1955, its name was changed to the North Carolina Council on Human Relations.

For additional information see material in folder 84 of this collection and "Critical Years: The North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation, 1942-1949," by Elizabeth Earnhardt, M.A. Thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1971.

Illustration, probably for a NCCIC pamphlet, [1948]. Series 3. Other materials, folder 63

Correspondence is primarily that of the directors of the North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation concerning daily operations of the NCCIC and its county and city affiliates, investigations of instances of injustice and violence towards African Americans, and financial matters. Included are letters from officers and organizations including the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Regional Council, and the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company.

Financial and legal materials include financial statements, 1942-1949, budget sheets, income tax returns, an audit report, and two NCCIC account books. Legal items include the agreement of affiliation between the Southern Regional Council and the North Carolina Commission On Interracial Cooperation, 1946; and "Act To Create The North Carolina Commission On Interracial Cooperation," 1949; a study concerning a Hamlet, N.C., murder in 1928; and an investigation of a Pender County, N.C., lynching in 1933.

Other materials include pamphlets and other printed materials, speeches, radio program materials, reports, and other writings on topics such as race relations, education, religion, crime, discrimination, and civic involvement; responses to a 1948 survey of North Carolina public libraries about their holdings on minorities; conference materials; meeting minutes; and constitutions, by-laws, and resolutions.

• Oversize paper (XOPF-3823/1)