Research in the Capital

NCHC-SOHP Teachers' Institutes

SOHP Oral History Workshops

Project for Historical Education

"Listening for a Change" Outreach Events





SOHP Home > Outreach > "Preserving Our Political Past"

"Preserving Our Political Past"

Dr. William Pete, Dr. William Friday,
and the late Chancellor Michael Hooker
at the "Perserving Our Political Past" Reception
Braving icy weather, over 150 people came from across the state to celebrate the completion of the Southern Oral History Program's North Carolina Politics project on February 13, 1997. "Preserving Our Political Past," a panel discussion moderated by William Friday and hosted by the late UNC-CH Chancellor Michael Hooker, featured State Sen. Leslie Winner and Jack Hawke, former head of the N.C. GOP. Following the program, audience members were invited to attend a reception that included an exhibit of photographs and an audio collage of interview excerpts gathered during the oral history project.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of the American South, the Southern Historical Collection, the UNC-CH Department of History, the Academic Affairs Library, and the Program on Politics, the Media, and Public Life, the event gave the SOHP an opportunity to honor Walter Royal Davis for his generous gift in 1994. The Davis Oral History Fund enabled the SOHP to undertake the North Carolina Politics project and other major oral history initiatives.

UNC-Greensboro history professors Steven Lawson and William Link coordinated the North Carolina Politics project from its inception in 1995. With the assistance of primary interviewer Joe Mosnier, now associate director of the SOHP/Center for the Study of the American South, Lawson and Link examined the reemergence of the Republican Party, the transformation of Democratic Party politics, black political participation since the Voting Rights Act, and the volatile cultural issues that have dominated the state's political landscape during the last quarter century. Over 50 interviews from the project have been deposited in the Southern Historical Collection.




The Southern Oral History Program
Center for the Study of the American South
Love House and Hutchins Forum
410 East Franklin St., CB# 9127, UNC-CH
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-9127
(919) 962-0455
info@sohp.org