Communists on Campus

by Billingsley, William J.

• ISBN13: 9780820321097
• ISBN10: 0820321095
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

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 their 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 progressive reputation, Billingsley also criticizes the school officials who publicly appeared to oppose the speaker ban law but, in

Author Biography

William J. Billingsley is a native of North Carolina. He currently lives in Irvine, California, and lectures at the Irvine Valley College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	ix
The "Speaker Ban" Law	1	(21)
Student Radicalism and the University	22	(22)
The Streets of Raleigh	44	(21)
The 1963 General Assembly	65	(23)
Making a Case for Revision	88	(15)
The Accreditation Threat	103	(20)
Rethinking the Speaker Ban	123	(26)
An Anticommunist Speaker Policy	149	(21)
Freeing the University	170	(19)
Confrontation in Chapel Hill	189	(18)
The Speaker Ban Goes to Court	207	(18)
Beyond the Speaker Ban	225	(12)
Conclusion	237	(8)
Notes	245	(42)
Bibliography	287	(14)
Index	301