Charles Adams and the Controversy over Use of the Woman’s College Library in Segregated North Carolina

Abstract

On November 13, 1950, Edward Kidder Graham Jr., the recently installed chancellor at the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro), wrote a letter to his administrative counterparts at Bennett College and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, both African American institutions of higher learning also in Greensboro. In the letter, he issued an open invitation for these leaders as well as other faculty members and student body representatives to attend the upcoming Harriet Elliott Social Science Forum titled “Public Opinion in a Democracy.” Graham stated that “the round table sessions on Friday afternoon are for faculty and student representatives of participating institutions, and all seats are open to all delegates at these round table sessions. On the other hand for the general meetings in Aycock Auditorium at public events, and in accordance with the policy of the Consolidated University, we shall have to ask those of our guests who are Negroes to sit in a section reserved for them.”1