Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Postscript to a protest, University Day redux

Posted on October 27, 2011October 27, 2011 by Staff

A Thousand Words
By Jock Lauterer


As a postscript to the Speaker Ban marker dedication on the UNC campus: There were so many magical moments from that University Day celebration, but here’s one “decisive moment” that will resonate with this photographer for a long time – the delight on the faces of Speaker Ban Law protesters spotting themselves and pals in the panoramic crowd shot of the historic demonstration on McCorkle Place, March 2, 1966, 45 years after that event. My comrades-in-arms are, left to right: my wife, Lynne Vernon-Feagans; School of Education Dean Bill McDiarmid; Eric Van Loon; and James Medford. When I asked Medford, now a lawyer in Greensboro, for his take on the day, he wrote: “… the dedication of this marker reminded me again of the fact, often quoted in various forms, that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. The crowd of students who showed up for the speech by Frank Wilkinson, which Eric and I were looking at in your photo, were citizens attempting to exercise their rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution, which the Speaker Ban law had denied them. The amendment bears repeating: ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’” When I asked the same question of Van Loon, now a Boston mediator who is the elected town moderator in Concord, Mass., he reflected: “On University Day, I was reminded of the political courage of the UNC student leaders, ambitious to run for future office, who risked being called pro-Communist but who (like those heralded in JFK’s Profiles in Courage) risked their political futures to stand up for free speech and Constitutional rights.”

A THOUSAND WORDS
Do you have an important old photo that you value? Email your photo to jock@email.unc.edu and include the story behind the picture. Because every picture tells a story. And its worth? A thousand words.
More “A Thousand Words”

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme