ABSTRACT CATES, MADISON WARD. “White Men Without Side-Arms:” Moderation, Manhood, and the Politics of Civil Rights in North Carolina, 1960-1965. (Under the direction of Dr. Katherine Mellen Charron). Much of the existing historiography on the Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina either focuses on grassroots activists at the community level or on debates about whether the state’s white citizens exhibited “progressive” views on race or not. This study seeks to bridge this gap by examining the relationships and political struggles between African American activists, white moderates, and arch-segregationists at the state level from 1960 to 1965. Throughout, broader ideas about gender, race, religion, and democracy are analyzed in order to move beyond oversimplified narratives that accentuate the bold, progressive outlooks of white moderates, reduce their segregationist opponents to caricatures, and diminish the role that African Americans played in challenging white political dominance. In particular, this paper explores how African-Americans leveraged the state’s “progressive mystique” to obtain greater concessions from white moderate politicians, especially Governor Terry Sanford. Yet, white moderates also confronted strident objections to any change from white supremacists. In order to mollify the demands of both groups, Sanford’s leadership exemplified a temperate realpolitik that opposed direct action campaigns and promoted racial harmony, quality public education, and robust economic development. It also reflected the ways in which events forced him to do in gendered terms. When black activists filled the streets and public facilities of North Carolina employing non-violent direct action as consistent with their dignity as men and citizens, Sanford and other white moderates responded by recasting southern manhood on ideas of law and order and Christian brotherhood. This vision stood in stark contrast to arch- segregationists’ more traditional conception of masculinity that privileged the defense of white women and children and acted as a clarion call for massive resistance. By looking at these interactions through the lenses of race, gender, and politics, this work hopes to raise important questions about who determines the possibilities of social change, how masculinity has been constructed in the history of the American South, and how contingency can scrutinize narratives about North Carolina’s progressive reputation. © Copyright 2015 by Madison Ward Cates All Rights Reserved “White Men Without Side-Arms:” Moderation, Manhood, and the Politics of Civil Rights in North Carolina, 1960-1965 by Madison Ward Cates A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts History Raleigh, North Carolina 2015 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ ______________________________ Katherine Mellen Charron Matthew M. Booker Committee Chair ________________________________ Nicholas Robins ii DEDICATION Dedicated to all my family, immediate, extended, and otherwise, for all their love and support. iii BIOGRAPHY Madison Cates is a native of Hillsborough, North Carolina. Growing up in a town with numerous historical markers and sites most likely contributed to his early interests in studying the history of the United States. Madison graduated from Gardner-Webb University in May 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. At this point, he plans to graduate with his Master of Arts this May and pursue his Ph.D. in History beginning next fall. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am humbled by all the careful attention that so many people have given to aid my personal and academic development. First, I cannot express enough appreciation for the time and effort that my advisor Dr. Katherine Mellen Charron gave to helping me develop this project, editing and commenting on numerous drafts, and for making me stick to “the calendar,” which I desperately needed. I owe so much of my confidence and growth as a historian and a teacher to Dr. Charron. I am also very grateful for the great interest and attention the late Dr. Walter Jackson devoted to critiquing the last two chapters of this thesis over the course of the past two semesters. His passion for the craft of history and, more importantly, students and colleagues will be missed, but never forgotten. Dr. Matthew Booker provided me with an outstanding model of how scholars can produce incisive research while also inspiring students to learn by asking big, often unanswerable questions. I am further indebted to Dr. Booker for his thoughtful review of a portion of this work for a conference paper and willingness to serve on my committee. Although I had little training in Latin American History, Dr. Nicholas Robins’s course on “Latin American Revolutions in the Twentieth Century” piqued my interest and helped improve my research and writing skills. Dr. Susanna Lee and Dr. Megan Cherry read and offered invaluable feedback, whether for class, writing groups, or conferences, on drafts and abstracts of this work. Also, Dr. Lee graciously reviewed the second chapter as my writing sample, along with numerous drafts of personal statements as part of workshops on applying to Ph.D. programs. v The origins of this thesis came from a term paper I wrote for Dr. Timothy Vanderburg’s “History of the New South” class at Gardner-Webb University. Therefore, I can be nothing short of thankful for the friends, mentors, and professors who most shaped my undergraduate studies, including: Dr.Vanderburg, Dr. David K. Yelton, and Dr. Joseph S. Moore. Among so many other things they taught me, this cohort of professors and colleagues taught me about so much more than historical knowledge and skills. And most of all, I have to thank my wife Carly, my parents David and Nancy, my sister Claire, and all my extended family, who nurtured and encouraged my love for studying the past, but most of all, who keep me optimistic, humble, and, above all else, who remind me of what is most important. They have attended all my presentations over the past six years, and, I am sure, would be at my thesis defense if possible. Even more significantly, all of you encouraged my efforts, made me laugh when I needed it most, joyfully put up with my large book collections, and so much more than I have space to write about here. In athletics, coaches often say that winning a championship requires a team to possess both skill and luck. Although there is no comparison between athletics and writing this thesis, I am very fortunate to have such dedicated family, friends, professors, and mentors. I credit the skill to all those above, any errors or faults that remain are my own. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: Fighting for a New Day: Terry Sanford and Jim Crow North Carolina, 1896- 1961..........................................................................................................................................21 CHAPTER 2: The Tobacco Curtain: North Carolina and the Freedom Highways Campaign, 1961-1962 ................................................................................................................................65 CHAPTER 3: “The Only Weapon We Have Found:” Democracy, Moderation, and the Protest Movements of 1963-1965 ..........................................................................................109 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................162 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................173 1 INTRODUCTION: “the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the white Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” 1 –Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963 Unlike his idol, Martin Luther King Jr., no published record exists of what Jesse Jackson said or wrote in June 1963 while confined in a makeshift jail at Greensboro’s old polio hospital. Jackson’s “Letter from Greensboro Jail,” as it became known, developed out of an unscripted speech directed to a gathering of his fellow protestors and the police officers guarding the jail. A. Knighton Stanley, a local Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) activist, remembered the speech as both “equally poetic as Martin Luther King’s letter” and remarkable for its spontaneity and “national implications.” 2 William Thomas Jr., another local CORE leader, also described Jackson’s letter as a “dramatic” statement “indicting everybody,” which helped motivate local civil rights activists. 3 King’s “Letter,” considered one of the most important texts in American history, had a profound effect on Jackson, then a student and football player at historically-black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T). Indeed, Jackson stood as one student leader in a series of large 1 Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” in The Autobiography