N.C. Civil Rights Time Line, Pt. 2

A Change Is Gonna Come:
A Civil Rights in North Carolina Time Line
Part 2: 1901-1953

1900 North Carolina Census Data
Total	1,893,810
Whites	1,263,603
African Americans	624,469
American Indians	5,687
Chinese	51
Other races	N/A

1900	Democrats regain control of the governorship and the General Assembly through a harsh white supremacy campaign.
	The “Suffrage Amendment” to the state constitution institutes a literacy requirement for voting. It includes a “grandfather clause” that allows illiterate white men to vote but effectively disfranchises men of color.
	Because many Cherokee had previously voted Republican, Democrats take advantage of an 1895 federal court ruling that the Cherokee are wards of the federal government to curtail their suffrage. Local registrars deny them the right to vote.
1903	Booker T. Washington addresses the N.C. Industrial Association’s annual fair. He advises African Americans to content themselves working in agriculture, reject migration, and seek the type of education that will promote community building.
1906	Gov. Robert B. Glenn calls the National Guard to respond after five African American men are lynched in Salisbury.
1907	The General Assembly passes a compulsory school attendance law and authorizes secondary schools for whites.
1909	The NAACP forms in New York.

1910 North Carolina Census Data
Total	2,206,287
Whites	1,500,511
African Americans	697,843
American Indians	7,851
Chinese	80
Japanese	2
Other races	N/A

1910-1930	In the most active years of the Great Migration, huge numbers of African Americans move away from the South to escape Jim Crow and search for higher wages. An estimated total of 3.5 million leave between 1890 and 1930.
1910	The National Religious Training School and Chautauqua, founded by Dr. James E. Shepard, opens in Durham. In 1923 it becomes a state-supported school to train African American teachers. Two years later, the General Assembly makes it the nation’s first state-supported liberal arts college for blacks, named the N.C. College for Negroes. It eventually becomes N.C. Central University.
1911	The state recognizes a group of people descended from the Saponi, Tutelo, and Occaneechi tribes as the Indians of Person County.
	The General Assembly changes the name of the Croatans to the Indians of Robeson County.
	The Coharie Indians receive state recognition, but it is rescinded two years later. The Greensboro city council passes an ordinance requiring separate white and black residential areas. Other southern cities have similar ordinances.
1913	The Indians of Robeson County change their name to Cherokee Indians of Robeson County.
1914	The Cherokee in western North Carolina hold the first Cherokee Fall Fair to encourage tourism in their region.
1915	The Supreme Court outlaws the “grandfather clause.”
1917	The nation enters WWI. Many Indians and African Americans serve in Europe, the latter in segregated units.
1917–18	Local officials deny voter registration to Cherokee veterans of WWI.
1918–32	More than 800 Rosenwald schools for African American students are built in North Carolina.

1920 North Carolina Census Data
Total	2,559,123
Whites	1,783,779
African Americans	763,407
American Indians	11,824
Chinese	88
Japanese	24
Other races	1

1920	The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives women throughout the nation the right to vote, though North Carolina does not ratify the amendment until 1971. Cherokee women try to register to vote, but local officials prohibit them.
1921	North Carolina establishes the Division of Negro Education, with Nathan C. Newbold as director and George E. Davis as his assistant.
1924	Federal law places Cherokee lands in trust with the federal government and grants citizenship rights to all Indians. North Carolina holds that these rights apply in the state only after tribal lands are allotted.
1928	Annie Wealthy Holland of Gates County forms the N.C. Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers, the first such organization for African Americans in the state.
1929	Union agitation and a textile workers’ strike at Loray Mill in Gastonia lead to the deaths of the town’s police chief and of white labor leader Ella May Wiggins.

1930 North Carolina Census Data
Total	3,170,276
Whites	2,234,958
African Americans	918,647
American Indians	16,579
Chinese	68
Japanese	17
Other races	7

1930	Federal law grants citizenship to Cherokee Indians in North Carolina.
1932	Black ministers in Raleigh protest the dedication of the War Memorial Auditorium because they have to sit in the balcony.
1935	Indians in Robeson County become eligible to organize under the federal Wheeler-Howard Act, passed the previous year. Individuals must be at least half-blood Indians to receive recognition.
1938	African American students in Greensboro initiate a theater boycott to protest the absence of racially balanced movies.
	Only 22 of 209 people tested in Robeson County qualify for recognition as Indians. Qualification is based on assessment of physical features.
1939	In response to the Gaines decision, North Carolina begins offering graduate courses in liberal arts and the professions at the N.C. College for Negroes in Durham and in agriculture and technology at the Agricultural and Mechanical College in Greensboro.

1940 North Carolina Census Data
Total	3,571,623
Whites	2,567,635
African Americans	981,298
American Indians	22,546
Chinese	83
Japanese	21
Other races	40

1940	North Carolina abolishes the poll tax, used to limit minority voting.
	The Indian Normal School of Robeson County grants its first college degree.
1941	The nation enters WWII following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many African Americans serve in the military in segregated units. All black marines train at Montford Point, the segregated section of Camp Lejeune.
1942	The Southern Conference on Race Relations brings together 59 black leaders from 10 southern states at the N.C. College for Negroes. A committee headed by Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University issues the Durham Manifesto, which demands voting rights and equal educational and job opportunities for African Americans.
	CORE, a civil rights group dedicated to direct action through nonviolence, is founded in Chicago.
1943	Black tobacco workers go on strike at R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem.
	The N.C. Conference of NAACP Branches forms in Charlotte.
1946–47	Cherokee veterans of WWII register to vote.
1946	Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, a Cherokee crafts cooperative, forms.
1947	CORE tests a Supreme Court decision against segregation in interstate bus travel by sending eight African American men on Greyhound and Trailways bus rides. Riders are arrested in Asheville, Durham, and Chapel Hill. This “Journey of Reconciliation” becomes the model for the 1961 Freedom Rides.
	The first Indian mayor of the town of Pembroke is elected. Previously the governor appointed the mayors, all non-Indians.
1948	Pres. Harry Truman approves desegregation of the military and creates the Fair Employment Board.

1950 North Carolina Census Data
Total	4,061,929
Whites	2,983,121
African Americans	1,047,353
American Indians	3,742
Chinese	345
Japanese	21
Other races	27,270

1950–53	In the Korean War, minorities serve in integrated units.
1951	A court order requires the University of North Carolina to admit minority students to its graduate and professional schools. Floyd B. McKissick becomes the first African American admitted to the law school.
1952	Catholic parish schools in North Carolina begin desegregation.
1952–54	Waccamaw Indian School opens in Columbus County. It operates until 1969.
1953	Elementary schools at Fort Bragg army base are desegregated.
	The state changes the name of the people formerly called the Croatans, Indians of Robeson County, and Cherokee Indians of Robeson County to the Lumbee.