The Civil Rights Movement in Greenville and Pitt County: Documenting the Fight for School Desegregation in Greenville/Pitt County

Abstract

Using documents from the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection and the East Carolina Manuscript Collection, Patrick Cash will examine the response of North Carolina’s government to the 1954 Brown v. Board decision and the efforts to resist school desegregation. The talk will also examine the response of Pitt County and Greenville City School officials after local families and the courts system began to challenge the status quo of local schools in the 1960s and 70s. The presentation will also include materials from the North Carolina Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Library at UNC Chapel Hill as well as the North Carolina State Archives.