Communists on Campus
Subtitle: Race, Politics, and the Public University in Sixties North Carolina
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: October 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9780820321097
Subjects: Law and legislation; Political aspects; History - General History; Higher Education (Specific Aspects); United States - 20th Century/60s; Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights; History: American; North Carolina; Discrimination & Racism; United States - State & Local - General; American history: postwar, from c 1945 -; Human rights; Marxism & Communism; Universities / polytechnics; United States - 20th Century; History; Universities and colleges; 20th century; Academic Freedom; Education
First sentence: Late on the afternoon of June 25, 1963, the North Carolina General Assembly prepared to close what had been a rancorous session in which the leadership and a coterie of influential conservatives had experienced disappointment, frustration, and defeat.
Description: "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 conservative 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 reality, questioned both civil rights legislation and student's rights to political opinions.

Exposing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the main target of the ban, he addresses the law's intent to intimidate state schools into submitting to reactionary legislative demands at the expense of the students' political freedom."--BOOK JACKET.