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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

From the Washington Post:
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III may not be sued by a Pakistani man who was seized in the United States after the 2001 terrorist attacks and who alleged harsh treatment because of his religion and ethnicity.
The court [...]

Last summer Rachel blogged about a new Mellon-funded project aimed at sharing scholarship on the civil rights movement. Last month, Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement (LCRM) sponsored a wildly successful conference here at UNC to discuss the project and possibilities for scholarly collaboration. LCRM director Sylvia Miller described the conference this way:
All of the [...]

We’re mourning two great losses over here at the Press this afternoon.
In addition to being UNC Press authors, both men were giants in their fields, and indeed helped establish and define new fields of scholarship.
Both lived long, fulfilling lives in which their pioneering intellectual pursuits served the public good.
Both gave of themselves tirelessly, mentoring and [...]

The past few weeks here in the Raleigh -Durham -Chapel Hill area were filled with the type of weather you’d rather read about than have to live through: rain, snow, black ice in the mornings, a damp cold and the occasional wind to cut through most clothing. This section of North Carolina tends to [...]

On WUNC’s (91.5 FM Chapel Hill) The State of Things today at noon, Frank Stasio and a panel of guests will be discussing the legal and religious meanings of marriage in light of the passage of Prop 8 in California and similar amendments in other states.
Guests will include UNC Press author E. Patrick Johnson, professor [...]