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This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
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Collection Overview
| Size | 21.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 11,200 items) |
| Abstract | John Kenyon Chapman (1947-2009), known as Yonni, was a white, life-long social justice activist, organizer, and historian who focused his academic and social efforts on workers rights and African American empowerment in central North Carolina. Chapman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1947; graduated from Harvard University in 1969; and then moved to Atlanta, Ga., to join the fight for African American equality. He relocated to North Carolina in 1975 and worked as a laboratory technician at the North Carolina Memorial Hospital for about ten years. During this time, Chapman became active in local social justice struggles and community organizations. He helped organize his coworkers against unfair working conditions, became involved with the Communist Workers Party, and participated in African liberation and anti-apartheid struggles. Chapman was a survivor of the Greensboro Massacre of 1979. Throughout the 1980s, he was active in progressive social justice campaigns. In the 1990s and 2000s, Chapman was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he focused his activism and academic work on historical accuracy, African American empowerment, and civil rights education in and around Chapel Hill. During this time, Chapman founded and directed two racial and social justice organizations: the Freedom Legacy Project in 1995 and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth in 2005. From 2002 to 2005, Chapman ran a successful campaign to abolish the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on campus, an action that opened a dialogue about the history of slavery and racism on campus. After a 30-year battle with cancer, Chapman died on 22 October 2009 in Chapel Hill. The collection documents Yonni Chapman's social activism and academic activities, covering nearly four decades of progressive racial, social, and economic justice struggles in central North Carolina. Organizational correspondence, notes, newsletters, and reports document the activities of the Communist Workers Party, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, the New Democratic Movement, the Freedom Legacy Project, and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, among other organizations on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus and in Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, and Greensboro. Workers rights and racial justice campaigns and commemorations, including the Greensboro Massacre and the campaign to end the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award on campus, are documented in paper, audio, visual, and photographic formats. Photographs, slides, contact prints, photographic negatives, posters, banners, signs, and screen-printed t-shirts, chiefly created by Chapman, document a variety of demonstrations, meetings, and social justice events. Audio and video materials, largely created by Chapman include documentaries, meetings, speeches, and demonstrations captured on audio cassettes, VHS tapes, 8mm video cassettes, and DVDs. Research materials for Chapman's graduate doctoral work include audio and paper files of interviews with participants in the Chapel Hill civil rights movement. There are also audio files recorded by Chapman on a digital voice recorder in the year leading up to his death that contain lengthy discussions with local activists about continuing his social justice work after his death; audio recordings and a video photograph montage from Chapman's 2009 memorial service; photographs of Chapman with friends and family; and other items. |
| Creator | Chapman, John Kenyon. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Subject Headings
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.
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Biographical Information
John Kenyon Chapman (1947-2009), known as Yonni, was a white, life-long social justice activist, organizer, and historian who focused his academic and social career on workers' rights and African American empowerment in central North Carolina. Chapman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1947. He received a bachelor's degree in United States history from Harvard University in 1969 and subsequently moved to Atlanta, Ga., to join the fight for African American equality. Chapman became a certified laboratory assistant after attending a two-year program at Atlanta Area Technical School. He moved to North Carolina in 1975 and worked as a technician, chiefly in the hematology laboratory at the North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C., from 1975 to 1985. During this time, Chapman became active in local social justice struggles and community organizations. He served as president of the North Carolina Memorial Hospital Employees Forum from 1978 to 1980 and helped unite his coworkers against racial discrimination and unsafe conditions in the workplace.
Soon after joining the North Carolina Memorial Hospital staff, Chapman became involved with the Workers Viewpoint Organization, a diverse nationally active progressive organization that was involved in many workers rights and racial justice campaigns, as well as African liberation and anti-apartheid struggles, in and around Greensboro and Durham, N.C. In 1979, he joined the Communist Workers Party, a radical Maoist political organization with militant and strongly anti-capitalist principles that focused its efforts chiefly on unionization and civil rights. On 3 November 1979, the Communist Workers Party held an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in Greensboro. Armed members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party arrived at the rally and opened fire, killing five Communist Workers Party members. This event is known as the Greensboro Massacre, and the victims are remembered collectively as the CWP-5. Chapman was present at the Greensboro Massacre, an event that helped to solidify his commitment to social justice advocacy. He remained an active member of the Communist Workers Party until it dissolved in the early-mid 1980s.
Chapman was involved with a number of other campaigns and organizations during his time as a hospital employee. In 1980, he helped organize the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Housekeepers Movement and was active in various other campaigns in and around Orange County, N.C., including those of the Welfare Rights Organization and the Chapel Hill Tenant Organization. Chapman co-founded the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience in 1982 with fellow activist Fred Battle. The Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience focused its efforts on local school politics and the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Chapman was the North Carolina state coordinator for the Federation for Progress, a national progressive organization formed in 1982 that broadly held the ideals of equality, peace, freedom, and justice. The state chapter of the Federation for Progress was headquartered in Greensboro, N.C., and an active chapter existed in Durham as well. The organization dissolved around 1985.
Chapman was also a leader in the Durham chapter of the New Democratic Movement, a national progressive organization formed in 1985 in the wake of the Communist Workers Party. From 1985 until it dissolved in 1990, the New Democratic Movement promoted a socially democratic agenda and took a more peaceful and broadly accessible approach to politics and economics than that of the Communist Workers Party.
During the late 1980s, Chapman was employed as a woodworker at Hill Country Woodworks in Chapel Hill, was an original member of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, and served on the board of directors of the Community Church of Chapel Hill. Chapman entered the United States history graduate program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1990 and received his masters degree in 1995 after completing his thesis, Second Generation: Black Youth and the Origins of the Chapel Hill Civil Rights Movement, 1937-1963 . While at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he founded and directed the Freedom Legacy Project, a student-oriented social justice organization that aimed to expose institutional racism and document the history of racial justice struggles at the university in order to make that history available to modern movement-building efforts. The Freedom Legacy Project was active from 1995 to 2001 and focused much of its efforts on publicly questioning the campus presence of the Silent Sam Confederate soldier statue and decrying on racist grounds the namesake of the Saunders Hall classroom building.
During the mid-1990s, Chapman was an organizing committee member of the People's Music Network, as well as co-manager of Internationalist Books in Chapel Hill. He was an expert witness in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Housekeepers Association lawsuit, and was instrumental in organizing and presenting the housekeepers' history. From 1996 to 2000, Chapman served on the board of directors of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Campus Y, and in 2000 he made an unsuccessful bid for director.
Chapman joined the doctoral program in United States history at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2000 and received his Ph.D. in 2006. In his dissertation, Black Freedom and the University of North Carolina, 1793-1960, Chapman explored institutional racism and the African American struggle for equality at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. During this time, Chapman was a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and focused much of his efforts on organizing a campaign to abolish the annual Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The award was named in honor of a 19th-century woman who advocated higher education for females, yet was also a white supremacist. Chapman's campaign was ultimately successful, and his efforts opened a dialogue about the history of white supremacy, slavery, and racism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 2005-2006, Chapman founded and directed the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-based social justice organization that, according to its founder, aimed to "build a larger movement for historical honesty and inclusiveness as a component of the struggle for social and economic justice.". The Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth focused much of its efforts on commemorating the Lenoir dining hall cafeteria workers' strike of 1969 and campaigning against the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award.
Throughout the 2000s, Chapman concerned himself with civil rights education in the Chapel Hill community and was actively involved in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He served as the historian and second vice-chair of the organization during the late 2000s. During this time, Chapman became a certified Community Civil Rights Educator and was instrumental in a number of local commemorative civil rights campaigns.
After a 30-year battle with cancer, Yonni Chapman died on 22 October 2009 in Chapel Hill.
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Scope and Content
The collection documents Yonni Chapman's social activism and academic achievements, and, through a wide variety of audio, visual, paper, and digital formats, offers an account of nearly four decades of progressive racial, social, and economic justice struggles in the central North Carolina region.
Materials include correspondence, memoranda, notes, pamphlets, newsletters, essays, articles, and meeting materials of various social justice organizations on the Univeersity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus; in the town of Chapel Hill; and in such surrounding towns and cities as Durham, Raleigh, and Greensboro. Documented organizations include the Communist Workers Party, the Chatham County Committee for Human Rights, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, the New Democratic Movement, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Black Public Works Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the People's Music Network, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Campus Y, the Students for Economic Justice, the Freedom Legacy Project, and the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth, among others.
Also documented are various social justice campaigns in which Chapman was involved, including his organizing work as an employee at the North Carolina Memorial Hospital, the Greensboro Massacre, the Wilmington Ten protests, South African anti-Apartheid struggles, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lenoir dining hall cafeteria workers' strike of 1969, the Silent Sam statue controversy, the Saunders Hall renaming project, and the campaign to end the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award. Social justice campaign materials include agendas, brochures, correspondence, flyers, mailing lists and sign up sheets, meeting minutes, news articles, newsletters, notes, organizational planning materials, petitions, proposals, reports, research materials, and writings.
Audio and video materials were largely created by Chapman and include documentaries, meetings, speeches, and demonstrations captured on audio cassettes, VHS tapes, 8mm video cassettes, and DVDs. Photographs, slides, contact prints, and photographic negatives were chiefly captured by Chapman and document a variety of demonstrations, meetings, and other social justice events. Digital files from an external hard drive and Chapman's laptop computer consist of documents and some images relating to Chapman's social advocacy in Chapel Hill and the surrounding area. Also included are posters, banners, signs, and screen-printed t-shirts designed and used by Chapman at various demonstrations throughout central North Carolina.
The collection also contains interviews with participants in the Chapel Hill civil rights movement that Chapman used in his graduate and doctoral work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Paper transcripts accompany many of these interviews. The collection also includes Chapman's research, writings, and other materials concerning his graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
There are also audio files recorded by Chapman on a digital voice recorder in the year leading up to his death; some contain lengthy discussions with local activists about continuing Chapman's social justice work after his death. There are audio recordigns and a video photograph montage from Chapman's 2009 memorial service. Finally, there are born-digital photographs and scans of photographs of Chapman with friends and family including portraits of Chapman as a child through adulthood as well as photographs of nature scenes taken by Chapman.
The collection has been maintained in many of the original groupings as received by the repository. Materials of various formats that document related or identical events may be found in multiple series throughout the collection, including the unarranged Addition of August 2018. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
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Series Quick Links
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Series 1. Communist Workers Party and the Greensboro Massacre Materials, 1978-2007.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Flyers, pamphlets, newsletters, programs, correspondence, writings, memos, meeting minutes, news articles, press releases, recruitment materials, reports, and slides collected by Yonni Chapman documenting the activities of the Communist Workers Party in central North Carolina, as well as related activities surrounding and following the Greensboro Massacre. Documented events include anti-Ku Klux Klan demonstrations and movements to free the Wilmington Ten. There are also materials relating to organizations that honor the CWP-5 victims of the Greensboro Massacre, including the Greensboro Justice Fund and the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission; materials relating to commemorative Greensboro Massacre documentaries and events, including a slideshow; writings by and about former Communist Worker Party members, including Signe Waller and Nelson Johnson; a 45rpm recording by a group of singers who were affiliated with the Communist Workers Party; and issues, 1976-1980, 1982, of the Workers Viewpoint, the newspaper of the Communist Workers Party.
Materials relating to the Communist Workers Party and the Greensboro Massacre can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
DVD-05441/6, DVD-05441/9, DVD-05441/11, DVD-05441/13, and DVD-05441/15 are duplicates. DCD-05441/7 contains inventories of the digital materials in the collection.
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Series 2. Federation for Progress Records, 1978-1985.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Founding documents, proposals, meeting minutes, correspondence, newsletters, and other papers relating to the development of the organization. There are also flyers, petitions, and a proposal relating to the 1982 Dump Jesse Helms campaign.
Materials relating to the Federation for Progress can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
| Folder 19 |
Federation for Progress organizational materials, 1978-1985 #05441, Series: "2. Federation for Progress Records, 1978-1985." Folder 19Founding documents, proposals, meeting minutes, correspondence, and other papers relating to the development of the organization. |
| Folder 20 |
Dump Jesse Helms campaign, 1982 #05441, Series: "2. Federation for Progress Records, 1978-1985." Folder 20Flyers, petitions, and a campaign proposal. |
| Folder 21 |
Federation for Progress newsletters, 1982-1983 #05441, Series: "2. Federation for Progress Records, 1978-1985." Folder 21 |
| Folder 21a |
Federation for Progress clippings, brochures, and photocopied articles #05441, Series: "2. Federation for Progress Records, 1978-1985." Folder 21a |
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Series 3. New Democratic Movement Records, 1982-1992.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Memoranda, meeting minutes, notes, agendas, internal topical writings and publications, correspondence, membership lists and applications, bulletins, newsletters, magazines, and other papers relating to the development of the organization.
Materials relating to the New Democratic Movement can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
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Series 4. Freedom Legacy Project Records, 1995-2008.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Proposals, posters, flyers, signed petitions, notes, reports, membership lists, photographs, transparencies, news articles, Yonni Chapman's writings and correspondence, and other items related to the founding and development of the organization. There are also materials relating to the controversies surrounding the Silent Sam statue and Saunders Hall on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.
Materials relating to the Freedom Legacy Project can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
Folder 43-44
Folder 43Folder 44 |
Freedom Legacy Project organizational materials, 1995-2001 #05441, Series: "4. Freedom Legacy Project Records, 1995-2008." Folder 43-44 |
| Folder 45 |
Silent Sam statue controversy, 1997-2006 #05441, Series: "4. Freedom Legacy Project Records, 1995-2008." Folder 45Essays, letters to the editor, and several news articles authored by Yonni Chapman decrying the statue's presence on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus and its glorification of slain Confederate Civil War soldiers. |
| Folder 46 |
Saunders Hall Project, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill building names and institutional racism, 1999-2008 #05441, Series: "4. Freedom Legacy Project Records, 1995-2008." Folder 46News articles, posters, flyers, Chapman's writings and correspondence, signed petitions, notes, and reports regarding the anti-Ku Klux Klan decoration of Saunders Hall on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus organized by the Students Seeking Historical Truth in 1999, as well as the Freedom Legacy Project's campaign for a plaque to be added to the building to notify the public of Colonial William L. Saunders's involvement with the Klan. |
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Series 5. Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth Records, 1969-2006.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Agendas, meeting minutes, notes, correspondence, signed petitions, news articles, and other materials relating to the founding and development of the organization, the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award, and the 1969 Lenoir cafeteria workers' strike.
Materials relating to the Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
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Series 6. Other Activities and Organizations, 1976-2009.
Arrangement: Chronological
Materials relating to other progressive activities with which Yonni Chapman was involved that do not appear to be directly associated with any of the organizations documented in the preceding series.
Materials include agendas, brochures, correspondence, flyers, mailing lists and sign up sheets, meeting minutes, news articles, newsletters, notes, organizational planning materials, petitions, proposals, reports, research materials, and writings that document a wide variety of environmental, economic, racial, and social justice efforts in central North Carolina. This includes Chapman's organizing work while a Hematology Laboratory Technician at the North Carolina Memorial Hospital; anti-apartheid campaigns; Chatham County Committee for Human Rights struggles; Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience presidential campaign work and local struggles; Chapman's work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); numerous African American public workers' struggles and lawsuits in which Chapman was involved, including those of the Black Public Works Association, Martha Barbee, and the Battle family; the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard renaming effort, in which Chapman was a key advocate and a member of the Chapel Hill Town Council's special committee; the People's Music Network, for which Chapman was a national board member from 1996 to 1999 and a member of the Winter 1996 Gathering planning committee; activism in support of Kwame Cannon, the son of a Greensboro-based Communist Workers Party activist, who received a lengthy prison sentence for burglary; Chapman's personal reflection and leadership involvement with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Campus Y; and numerous other commemorations, demonstrations, marches, and organizations on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus and in the surrounding North Carolina municipalities of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Pittsboro, Siler City, Durham, Raleigh, and Greensboro.
Materials relating to the activities, events, and organizations represented here can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
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Series 7. Academic Research, Writings, and Interviews, 1974-2005.
Research, writings, and interviews relating to Yonni Chapman's graduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The first subseries contains audio recordings and paper transcripts of interviews conducted by Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C. The second subseries contains Chapman's research files that he incorporated into his masters thesis and doctoral dissertation. This includes his research and writings on Cornelia Phillips Spencer and the Bell Award; coursework, essays, resumes, transcripts, and writings that reflect his personal philosophies; and a number of annotated transcripts of interviews conducted in 1974 as part of the Duke University Oral History Program.
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Subseries 7.1. Chapel Hill, N.C., Civil Rights Movement Interviews, 1990-1996.
Arrangement: Alphabetical.
Audio recordings of interviews conducted by Yonni Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C. Many interviews include transcriptions, but some do not. There are also a few interview transcriptions for which the audio is not included.
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Subseries 7.2. Research Files and Writings, 1974-2005.
Research, essays, and interviews that Yonni Chapman incorporated into his masters thesis and doctoral dissertation, including files on Cornelia Phillips Spencer and the Bell Award; coursework, essays, resumes, transcripts, and writings that reflect his personal philosophies; and a number of annotated transcripts of interviews conducted in 1974 as part of the Duke University Oral History Program. As with Chapman's own series of interviews in the 1990s, these interviewees were participants in the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C.
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Series 8. Photographs of Demonstrations, Meetings, and Events, 1975-2007.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Photographic slides, photographic negatives, prints, and digital photographs that document various demonstrations, meetings, speeches, and events in which Yonni Chapman was involved. Photographs were chiefly taken by Chapman and depict events and organizations in the central North Carolina region, including the Medical Committee for Human Rights, a national organization of radical health workers with active local groups in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Durham, N.C.; the African Liberation and anti-apartheid movements; the Communist Workers Party; the Federation for Progress; Greensboro Massacre commemorative events; Anti-Klan rallies; Wilmington Ten demonstrations; the Chatham County Committee for Human Rights; North Carolina Memorial Hospital organizing; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill housekeepers and other service workers' organizing; Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations and rallies; anti-sweatshop campaigns; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus activism; workers' rights activism; the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award controversy; and other progressive social, racial, and economic activism. There are also scanned images of photographs, newspaper clippings, pamplets, and other materials related to the Journey of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, N.C., and scanned photographs of 1960s civil rights demonstrations collected by Yonni Chapman.
For the most part, original file folder titles have been retained.
Materials relating to the activities, events, and organizations represented here can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
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Series 9. Video of Demonstrations, Meetings, and Events, 1983-2009, and undated.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Video material documenting various demonstrations, meetings, speeches, and historical events in which Yonni Chapman was involved. Most videos were filmed and edited by Chapman and chiefly document events in central North Carolina. Materials include VHS cassette tapes, Video8 8mm cassette tapes, Video Hi8 8mm cassette tapes, digital video, and Windows audio. There are also documentaries about the Greensboro Massacre and the 1969 cafeteria workers' strike at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Processing information: For the most part, original video titles have been retained. Descriptions include formats of videotape when known. Materials relating to the activities, events, and organizations represented here can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them. Select videotapes (VT-05441/8, VT-05441/43, VT-05441/55) found in this series document the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party's 3 November 1979 attack on Communist Workers Party (CWP) demonstrators in Greensboro, N.C. These videotapes, which document the moments leading up to, including and after the shooting, include footage of death and blood.
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Series 10. Audio Recordings of Speeches, Meetings, and Events, 1978-2005 and undated.
Arrangement: Chronological.
Audio recordings of speeches, meetings, and events in central North Carolina where Yonni Chapman was involved. All material appears to have been recorded by Chapman.
For the most part, original audio titles have been retained.
Materials relating to the activities, events, and organizations represented here can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
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Series 11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005.
Posters, banners, signs, and screen-printed t-shirts designed and used by Yonni Chapman at various demonstrations throughout central North Carolina, including posters advertising the anti-Klan rally that would later be known as the Greensboro Massacre; Greensboro Massacre commemorative and informational posters; African Liberation Day posters; and a variety of other political and social signs, banners and shirts related to the activities of the Black Public Works Association, the Freedom Legacy Project, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Federation for Progress, the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, and the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award controversy.
Materials relating to the activities, events, and organizations represented here can be found in other series in this collection. Researchers should check all series to be sure that they have identified all files of interest to them.
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/1 |
Death to the Klan march posters, Greensboro, N.C., 3 November 1979 #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/1Two posters that advertise the rally that would later be known as the Greensboro Massacre. |
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/2 |
Printed posters commemorating the CWP-5 #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/2 |
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/3 |
Handmade posters related to the Greensboro Massacre and the CWP-5 #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/3 |
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/4 |
Communist Workers Party and Workers Viewpoint Organization handmade informational posters #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/4Two posters that were possibly used for instructional purposes regarding the history of the two organizations. The posters chiefly display news clippings and photographs. |
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/5 |
African Liberation Support Committee and African Liberation Day printed posters, circa 1976-1980 #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/5 |
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/6 |
Federation for Progress and Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience handmade posters, 1980s #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/6Five chiefly political posters with topics that include an anti-Bush and Cobey demonstration in Raleigh, N.C., and the Dump Jesse Helms campaign. |
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/7 |
Political and social demonstration posters, circa 1976-1986 #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/7Poster topics include Communist Workers Party-sponsored Jesse Jackson presidential campaign speeches by Nelson Johnson and Phil Thompson; a 1976 National March for Human and Labor Rights in Raleigh, N.C.; a Ronald Reagan presidential inauguration protest; nuclear disarmament; and the Mount Olive Pickles boycott. |
| Oversize Paper Folder OP-5441/8 |
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill-related demonstration posters, circa 1995-2005 #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." OP-5441/8Five posters related to the Black Public Works Association, the Freedom Legacy Project, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Bell Award controversy, and anti-sweatshop campaigns. |
| Box 19 |
T-shirts, 1980s #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." Box 19Screen-printed by Yonni Chapman. Included are a Federation for Progress Dump Jesse Helms t-shirt; a Federation for Progress Jobs, Peace, Equality t-shirt; a Jesse Jackson 1984 presidential campaign t-shirt; a First Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday t-shirt, 20 January 1986. |
Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience banner #05441, Series: "11. Posters, T-shirts, and Banner, circa 1976-2005." Box 19 |
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Series 12. External Hard Drive Files, circa 2004-2005.
Arrangement: Original order has, for the most part, been maintained. Files not in folders were grouped into Digital Folder 36
Chiefly documents and some images relating to Yonni Chapman's social advocacy in Chapel Hill and the surrounding area.
Received at the repository on data compact disk with the label "Political files from hard drive." Yonni Chapman's original folder and file titles have, for the most part, been retained.
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Series 13. Laptop Files, circa 2008-2009.
Arrangement: Original order has, for the most part, been maintained. Files not in folders were grouped into Digital Folder 7
Files from Yonni Chapman's laptop computer primarily relating to social justice organizing and to his illness.
Chapman's original folder and file titles have, for the most part, been retained.
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Series 14. Voice Recorder Audio Files, 2009.
Arrangement: Original order has been maintained.
Audio files recorded by Yonni Chapman on a digital voice recorder in the year leading up to his death. Recordings are political and personal in nature. There are a group of recordings from September and October 2009 recorded while Chapman was in home hospice care. These contain lenghty sessions with Chapman and several local activists in which they speak about continuing Chapman's political vision after his death. Speakers include Tim Tyson, Nancy McDurmott, Kerry Taylor, Supeinda Keith, Al McSurely, Rebekah Cowell, and Hayumi Higuchi.
Received at the repository on data compact disk. Yonni Chapman's original folder and file titles have, for the most part, been retained.
| Digital Folder DF-5441/1 |
Personal #05441, Series: "14. Voice Recorder Audio Files, 2009." DF-5441/1Includes interviews with Yonni Chapman by Rebekah Cowell, Sandi Chapman, and others; a partial autobiography; children's stories read aloud for his unborn grandchild; and monologues reflecting on his illness. |
| Digital Folder DF-5441/2 |
Political #05441, Series: "14. Voice Recorder Audio Files, 2009." DF-5441/2Includes recordings of political planning meetings and conversations about politics. |
| Digital Folder DF-5441/3 |
Downloaded after Yonni Chapman's death #05441, Series: "14. Voice Recorder Audio Files, 2009." DF-5441/3Files from September and October 2009 recorded while Chapman was in home hospice care. These contain lenghty sessions with Chapman and several local activists in which they speak about continuing Chapman's political vision after his death. Speakers include Tim Tyson, Nancy McDurmott, Kerry Taylor, Supeinda Keith, Al McSurely, Rebekah Cowell, and Hayumi Higuchi. |
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Series 15. Memorial Service, 2009.
Audio recordings and a video photograph montage from Yonni Chapman's 2009 memorial service.
| Digital Folder DF-5441/50 |
Memorial service: Audio and video files, 2009 #05441, Series: "15. Memorial Service, 2009." DF-5441/50 |
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Series 16. Personal photographs, 1945-2009.
Born-digital photographs and scans of photographs of Yonni Chapman with friends and family including portraits of Chapman as a child through adulthood. Also included are photographs of nature scenes taken by Chapman.
Received at the repository on compact disc. Original file titles have been maintained; images were sorted into folders at the repository.
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Series 17A. Papers, 1975-2000 (Addition of August 2018).
Acquisitions Information: Accession 103412
The addition consists chiefly of subject files on the Greensboro massacre and related topics, such as communist activities, victims of the massacre, and commemorations of the massacre; a campaign to battle environmental racism, including the Warren County pcb toxic spill in 1982; Chapel Hill/Carrboro activism in the early 1980s; and African liberation and South Africa. Photographic slides document African liberation Day in May 1977 and a high school diploma competency slide show in 1978. There are also printed social justice materials, included posters, flyers, and newsletters; notebooks with thoughts on the splitting of an organization he was involved in; and issues of Workers Viewpoint, 1970s-1980s, and other titles.
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Items Separated
Processed by: Matt Dailey, May 2011
Encoded by: Matt Dailey, June 2011
Updated because of digital materials ingest by Sara Mannheimer, November 2012
Data Compact Discs (DCD-05441/4-16) were ingested into the Carolina Digital Repository. They are listed in the finding aid as digital folders.
Revisions: Nancy Kaiser, January 2019
Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.
Select videotapes (VT-05441/8, VT-05441/43, VT-05441/55) found in this collection document the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party's 3 November 1979 attack on Communist Workers Party (CWP) demonstrators in Greensboro, N.C. These videotapes, which document the moments leading up to, including and after the shooting, include footage of death and blood.
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