Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, February 15, 1991
Subtitle: interview L-0064-4, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: McColl, Ann, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2008
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Law teachers; Discrimination in sports; College integration; African American college athletes; Basketball; Faculty; Political activity; Students; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. School of Law; Campus Y (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Other titles: Interview L-0064-4, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, February 15, 1991; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: This is the fourth interview in a nine-part series of interviews with civil liberties lawyer Daniel H. Pollitt. In this interview, Pollitt discusses his thoughts on race and athletics at UNC, as well as his involvement in student activism during the late 1950s and 1960s. Pollitt begins the interview by discussing the impact of the recruitment of African American athletes, like Charlie Scott--the first African American athlete to attend UNC on scholarship--and Bill Chamberlain. After describing how UNC's football coach was reluctant to recruit African American athletes on scholarship, Pollitt describes how he worked alongside Dean Smith as the faculty advisor to the campus NAACP to recruit Scott in the late 1960s. (Note: Pollitt says numerous times in the interview that Scott, and later Chamberlain, came to UNC in the late 1950s, but it was actually during the late 1960s.) Pollitt discusses how lingering racial tensions and discrimination in the broader community played a decisive factor in the recruitment of African American athletes. He devotes considerable attention to his work as a leader of the student YMCA-YWCA during the late 1950s and 1960s. Pollitt explains how the Student Y was the center of student activism on campus during those years and describes in detail how he helped to organize Vietnam war protests among UNC students, even chartering buses to take students from UNC to Washington, D.C., to lobby their local legislators about the war and to participate in anti-war demonstrations. The interview concludes with Pollitt's brief discussion of his work with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which he elaborates on in later interviews.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 13, 2008).

Interview participants: Daniel H. Pollitt, interviewee; Ann McColl, interviewer.

Duration: 00:55:32.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 84 kilobytes, 101 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series L, University of North Carolina, interview L-0064-4, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 25 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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