Overview

North Carolina's 1963 speaker ban law declared the state's public college and university campuses off-limits to ""known members of the Communist Party"" or to anyone who cited the Fifth Amendment in refusing to answer questions posed by any state or federal body. Oddly enough, the law was passed in a state where there had been no known communist activity since the 1950s. Just which ""communists"" was it attempting to curb? In Communists on Campus, William J. Billingsley bares the truth behind the false image of the speaker ban's ostensible concern. Appearing at a critical moment in North Carolina and U.S. history, the law marked a last-ditch effort by conservative rural politicians to increase conservative power and quell the demands of the civil rights movement, preventing the feared urban political authority that would accompany desegregation and African American political participation. Questioning the law's discord with North Carolina's progreslitical and educational figures Allard Lowenstein, Terry Sanford, William Friday, Herbert Aptheker, and Jesse Helms in an account that epitomizes the social and political upheaval of sixties America.

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9780820352206

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Reviews

The book offers much more than an institutional history. It is a thorough examintation of muddy state politics and the delicate dance public administrators had to perform with the legistlature and their own campus constituents. It uses the Chapel Hill campus and the speaker ban as a lens through which to examine broader issues of institutional autonomy and how autonomy is influenced by state and national events, political attitudes, and petty squabbles. -- H-Net Reviews Impressive, well researched, and engaging. [This book] should attract a diverse group of readers with interests ranging from the civil rights movement to the history of higher education. --James L. Leloudis, author of Schooling in the New South: Pedagogy, Self, and North Carolina, 1880-1920 A serious and valuable work . . . Fosters an understanding of the race and class fault lines that remain under the surface of all southern politics . . . A solid contribution to the political literature of the region. -- Journal of Politics Examines an important, often overlooked locus of political conflict in the 1960s South: the college campus . . . Billingsley has written a useful book whose discussion of the 'culture wars' between southern locals and cosmopolitans will make it required reading for students of the 1960s. -- American Historical Review Elaborates a useful, accurate, and quite finely told story, tracing connections to major political figures, and connections also to the ongoing civil rights movements. -- Academe: Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors Explores a fascinating episode in North Carolina history . . . Challenges the view offered by such scholars as V. O. Key and William Chafe that race did not drive North Carolina politics. -- Journal of American History Billingsley's talent as a historian lies in his animated rendition of institutional and state politics capturing the spirit of political and social resistance on both sides of the controversy. . . . [An] excellent addition to the literature exploring the social and ideological politics of public universities, prompting us to reflect upon their role in shaping our national history. -- History of Education Quarterly Remarkable . . . The author has demonstrated some of my favorite people doing things that I wish that they had not done. --John Herbert Roper, editor of C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics Elaborates a useful, accurate, and quite finely told story, tracing connections to major political figures, and connections also to the ongoing civil rights movements.-- Academe: Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors The book offers much more than an institutional history. It is a thorough examintation of muddy state politics and the delicate dance public administrators had to perform with the legistlature and their own campus constituents. It uses the Chapel Hill campus and the speaker ban as a lens through which to examine broader issues of institutional autonomy and how autonomy is influenced by state and national events, political attitudes, and petty squabbles.-- H-Net Reviews Billingsley's talent as a historian lies in his animated rendition of institutional and state politics capturing the spirit of political and social resistance on both sides of the controversy. . . . [An] excellent addition to the literature exploring the social and ideological politics of public universities, prompting us to reflect upon their role in shaping our national history.-- History of Education Quarterly Explores a fascinating episode in North Carolina history . . . Challenges the view offered by such scholars as V. O. Key and William Chafe that race did not drive North Carolina politics.-- Journal of American History Examines an important, often overlooked locus of political conflict in the 1960s South: the college campus . . . Billingsley has written a useful book whose discussion of the 'culture wars' between southern locals and cosmopolitans will make it required reading for students of the 1960s.-- American Historical Review A serious and valuable work . . . Fosters an understanding of the race and class fault lines that remain under the surface of all southern politics . . . A solid contribution to the political literature of the region.-- Journal of Politics Impressive, well researched, and engaging. [This book] should attract a diverse group of readers with interests ranging from the civil rights movement to the history of higher education.--James L. Leloudis author of Schooling in the New South: Pedagogy, Self, and North Carolina, 1880-1920 Remarkable . . . The author has demonstrated some of my favorite people doing things that I wish that they had not done.--John Herbert Roper editor of C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics

Impressive, well researched, and engaging. [This book] should attract a diverse group of readers with interests ranging from the civil rights movement to the history of higher education.--James L. Leloudis author of Schooling in the New South: Pedagogy, Self, and North Carolina, 1880-1920

Author Information

WILLIAM J. BILLINGSLEY was born and raised in North Carolina. He currently lives in Costa Mesa, California, and lectures at the University of California, Irvine.

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