NewsRelease

Panel to Discuss Greensboro and Civil Rights Sept. 24

GREENSBORO – William H. Chafe, the author of a landmark book about race and social change in Greensboro, will take part in a community discussion – “Has Greensboro Changed?” – at 7 p.m. Sept. 24 at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The discussion will also feature community leaders, including the Rev. George Brooks of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Greensboro Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne J. Johnson and former News & Record Editor William D. Snider. Dr. Ben Ramsey, an associate professor of religious studies at UNCG, will moderate the discussion at the Weatherspoon Art Museum.

Chafe wrote “Civilities and Civil Rights,” a pioneering case study of race relations in Greensboro from the 1930s through the early 1970s. The book won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.

In it, he describes North Carolina as an environment controlled by a “progressive mystique” that gave the appearance of courtesy and tolerance while leaving racial oppression intact. It was against this “culture of civility,” Chafe posits, that the Greensboro civil rights movement – and the sit-ins in particular – had to contend, using new techniques of non-violent protest to make racial equality part of the political agenda.

Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Duke University.

This event, free and open to the public, is offered by the Division of Continual Learning’s Community Advancement through Lifelong Learning Program. The Weatherspoon Art Museum is located at Tate and Spring Garden Streets.

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