The first few books from UNC Press’ Spring|Summer 2010 catalog made it to bookshelves this month, and many more will be debuting in the coming months. One of the books we’re excited to publish, in partnership with Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement, is Robert R. Korstad and James L. Leloudis’ To Right These [...]

This is the question Susan Reverby considers in a post over at Wonders & Marvels. The author of, most recently, Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy writes:
In my most recent book, I had to explain: why did the doctors do it? Sometimes it is easy to answer this: all the men were [...]

This week is the very good time to talk about Graham Hodges’ new book David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City–for at least two reasons.  The first of these is that Hodges was interviewed by Eric Foner (DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University) as part of [...]

Today, February 12th, 2010, marks the 101st anniversary of one of the nation’s most important organizations, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Because of today’s important nature, we want to focus on someone central to the organization’s success, as well as many more victories in the civil rights movement.
Born in 1903, Ella Baker [...]

On February 1, 1960, four students from the historically black Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina (now the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University) sat down in the “whites only” section of a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. They were refused service, but stayed. The next day, there were around 25 [...]

In the mid-1950s, Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987), a former public school teacher, developed a citizenship training program that enabled thousands of African Americans to register to vote and then to link the power of the ballot to concrete strategies for individual and communal empowerment. In Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark, Katherine Mellen Charron [...]

First, let’s set the scene:

A little closer…

Last Sunday, UNC Press held a book party at the historic Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.  The event celebrated three of our fall 2009 titles:
Foy Allen Edelman, author of SWEET CAROLINA, spent six years traveling every inch of North Carolina to collect the best in local dessert recipes; [...]

I know we’re not supposed to have favorite authors here at the Press, but since I live in the IT World and rarely interact with our authors, I’ll provide myself with something of an exemption.
Last September I wrote about E. Patrick Johnson’s newly released book, titled Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South. [...]

Today, The New York Times ran Jones County, Miss. – Civil War Fires Up Literary Shootout, a report by Michael Cieply about two conflicting books and a yet-to-be greenlighted Hollywood movie. At the center of everything lies Newton Knight, a white, landowning, Confederate deserter living deep in Mississippi, who famously tried to secede and form [...]

Last week best-selling fiction writer E. Lynn Harris died at the age of 54. Harris’s closeted and openly gay black characters paved the way for a new and vibrant genre of popular literature with widespread appeal. Personally, Harris was a kind and generous man who sought to encourage and support other gay black writers, including [...]

In the past month, an occurrence in the suburbs of Philadelphia has turned into a national story. After a group of minority children were disinvited by a private swimming pool’s administration, community members were outraged. Senator Arlen Spector said that if allegations were true, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was likely violated. Now, the [...]

Reunited and it feels so good; okay, so maybe 1868 wasn’t as smooth as a pop song.  There were a few kinks to work out.  How would secessionist states regain self-governing status?  How would newly freedmen be integrated into southern society?  What would become of the leaders of the Confederacy?  Reconstruction proved to be one [...]

Today, the UNC Press blog is happy to offer a guest post from William A. Blair, professor of U.S. history and director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at the Pennsylvania State University. In November, UNC Press will be publishing Lincoln’s Proclamation, a collection of essays coedited by Blair and Karen [...]

We welcome a guest post today from Fay Botham, author of the forthcoming book Almighty God Created the Races: Christianity, Interracial Marriage, and American Law. In her book, Botham demonstrates how Christianity was important to both racist and antiracist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries and how those movements influenced litigation over matters of [...]

Family, friends, and colleagues shared memories and inspiration in a loving service in honor of John Hope Franklin and his wife Aurelia Whittington Franklin yesterday at Duke Chapel. We say goodbye to a wise and generous man, a history-making historian, and an old friend.