“A Noble Idea” The History of Peabody Park (Part Two)

Have you ever wondered how UNCG acquired such a beautiful green space on the northern edge of its campus?  Well, the founding and development of Peabody Park is a fascinating story that reflects UNCG’s overall growth as a center of higher learning and a Greensboro neighbor.  Given the complexity of the story, the Park’s history is being told in three Spartan Story installments.  The first installment was told in November 2016, “A Noble Idea:” The History of Peabody Park (Part One), and focused on the Park’s founding through a generous donation of monies.  The second installment, May 2017, will pick up the Park’s story in 1902 and how it evolved from a place of strolling and reflection to one of recreational activities, open-air theatrical performances, and finally, institutional encroachment. 

 

Shortly after the land for Peabody Park was purchased in 1901, landscape designers established a series of walking trails.  Wooden benches were strategically placed along the paths.  Female students used this new green space for their required daily “walking periods.”  President Charles Duncan McIver described the designed space as an education park where student learning and physical education were brought together in one place.  McIver envisioned that stone markers and plaques would be installed to highlight human advancement and inspire the passing walker. However, plans for the installation of stone educational markers were shelved with McIver’s sudden death in 1906.  Despite his untimely death, the Park was quickly being incorporated into campus life.

 

Peabody Park became a popular venue for school festivals and performances.  Starting in 1904, students staged elaborate May Day Festivals.  Over the years, the festivals became more and more elaborate.  The Festival’s activities included: the crowning of a May Day queen, dramatic performances, parades, and folk dances.   With the American entry into World War One in 1917, the May Day festivals were stopped and did not resume until the 1920s.  Instead, students used Peabody Park to hold patriotic rallies and pageants to boost morale and to encourage the purchase of Liberty Bonds.  With May Day festivals starting up again in the 1920s and continuing into the 1950s, Peabody Park was again being used for student events and performances.  Indeed, there was even the establishment of “Park Night” that honored students who embodied the school’s ideals of scholarship and service. 

 

As enrollment grew in the 1920s, the school was challenged to meet the needs of its growing student population.  Under the leadership of President Foust, the school experienced a building boom and sought to incorporate parts of Peabody Park into its educational programs.  Tennis courts and an archery range were constructed to support physical education classes.  In 1934, during the height of the Depression, the federal government’s Civil Works Administration built a nine-hole golf course in the Park.  With the establishment of a Golf Club, the school administration hoped that faculty and students would be active members and that their membership dues would help support the maintenance of the grounds.  Unfortunately, Club membership remained low and the maintenance of the grounds proved to be costly. 

On the eve of America’s entry into World War Two in 1941, the golf course had fallen into disrepair.  It was decided to transform the space by damming one of the branches of the Buffalo Creek.  The dam helped to form a small lake for boating.  Peabody Park suddenly had a lake!  In addition, an outdoor amphitheater was constructed on the lake’s shore to be used for concerts and pageants.  All traces of the 1934 golf course disappeared.

Interestingly enough, the idea of a school golf course for recreation and learning was resurrected in the postwar period.  In 1954, the lake was drained and the lake bed was leveled.  State funds for a new nine-hole golf course were obtained.  To generate interest for this instructional course, the school held a “gala” in 1957 that featured local golf pros playing the course.  To sustain the project, the course was designed to keep maintenance costs down and to bring golf into the curriculum.  Unlike the fate of the Depression-era course, the 1954 golf course functioned as a nine-hole course until the 1990s.  In 1999, the old golf course was transformed into a short-game practice facility (150 yard fairway, 2 holes and a bunker) to be used by the school’s golf teams as well as for physical education classes.

With the projected growth of the school in the 1960s, there was a strong need to expand residential housing on the campus.  Portions of Peabody Park was identified as a space for development.  Plans were drawn up.  In 1960, the Moore-Strong Residence Hall was built.  In 1963, the Reynolds Residence Hall and the Grogan Residence Hall were opened.  Upon learning of the construction of residences halls in Peabody Park, a number of former students wrote to Chancellor Otis Singletary in 1965 objecting to the University's building plans.  They insisted that this unique green space be preserved.  Despite these written protests, the University moved forward with its building plans and opened both the Cone Residence Hall and the Phillips-Hawkins Residence Hall in 1967.

The third and final installment of the story of Peabody Park will examine how the Park continued to evolve along with the University’s own growth.  The blog post will consider issues such as the 1990s student protests over planned campus expansion as well as the 2016 announcement for the construction of two wetlands sites within Peabody Park.  Stay Tuned! 

The Speaker Ban Law and the Controversy over Academic Freedom at North Carolina Universities

On June 26, 1963, just before session adjournment, the North Carolina legislature ratified H.B. 1395, titled "an act to regulate visiting speakers at state supported colleges and universities." This bill decreed that no college or university receiving state funding in North Carolina was allowed to host a speaker who "(A) is a known member of the Communist Party; (B) is known to advocate the overthrow of the constitution of the United States or the state of North Carolina; [or] (C) has pleaded the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America in refusing to answer any question, with respect to communist or subversive connections, or activities." The act required the Boards of Trustees at these schools to enforce these restrictions.

Carolinian article regarding Student Government's
stance on Speaker Ban, Nov. 1, 1963

According to many reports, the bill and its passage came as a surprise to many, including key administrators in and across the Consolidated University of North Carolina System (which at the time, consisted of the University at Chapel Hill, N.C. State in Raleigh, and Woman's College -- soon to be UNCG). As detailed in a speech by UNCG Student Government President Anne Prince in October 1963, UNC President William Friday "was first notified of the existence of the bill just after it was introduced on the floor of the House, and before he could get to Raleigh, just 31 minutes later, a new law had been passed."

Administrators, faculty, staff, and students at the UNC System schools lambasted the bill, known as the Speaker Ban Law, as an assault on academic freedom. At UNCG, the Student Government passed numerous resolutions condemning the bill. Chancellor Otis Singletary joined President Friday and the leaders of the other two UNC campuses to speak out against the Speaker Ban Law. Faculty and key administrators across campus wrote legislators demanding a repeal of the law.

In a November 15, 1963 letter to President Friday, Herman Middleton, head of UNCG's Department of Drama and Speech, wrote about how he was unable to bring playwright Arthur Miller on campus to speak on his play The Crucible, which was being performed by the National Repertory Theatre as part of their residency at UNCG. Miller pleaded the fifth amendment during Congressional hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1957. Middleton wrote that "the educational experience would have been much greater if we could have had Mr. Miller on campus."

Farley Granger and Anne Meacham in the National
Repertory Theater's production of
Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Two years later, Mereb Mossman, dean of the faculty at UNCG, wrote North Carolina Governor Dan Moore regarding the impact of the Speaker Ban Law on faculty morale and recruitment. She wrote that "during the past two years, ... there have been many men whom we have sought to attract to positions on this campus who have questioned the Speaker Ban Law as an expression of lack of faith of the people of this State in its university." She also stresses the impact of the law on the national reputation and even its accreditation status (the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges was investigating possible violations of accreditation standards as a result of the law).

While many in academia fought the law, some North Carolina citizens encouraged legislators to continue the ban. A March 10, 1965 from a "P. Hastings" to Governor Moore declared that "any individual or group who refuses to come to the University of North Carolina or any other state supported college because Communists are not permitted to speak on the campus, indicates by their refusal that they are warped in their views to the extent that the students are better off by not hearing them." He continued, "I am positive beyond any doubt that if this matter was presented to the citizens of North Carolina and they be given an opportunity to express themselves, that 95% of them would be in favor of this law."

The North Carolina legislature, however, refused to repeal the law. In 1966, the UNC Chapel Hill chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) invited two known communist speakers to campus. In accordance with the Speaker Ban Law, the Board of Trustees rescinded the speakers' invitations. Supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the SDS filed suit in federal court challenging the Speaker Ban Law and its implementation. A three-judge federal court in Greensboro heard the arguments, and, in 1968, declared the Speaker Ban Law unconstitutional.


If you are interested in learning more about the speaker ban law in North Carolina (not just at UNCG), the State Archives has digitized a sampling of their archival records dealing with the Speaker Ban Study Commission.

WC Students, Tate Street, and Desegregation in 1963

While the February 1960 sit-in at Greensboro’s F.W. Woolworth store downtown is well known, fewer people are knowledgeable about a second round of protests that escalated in Greensboro in the Spring of 1963. A number of Woman’s College (WC) students participated in the 1960 sit-ins, but the 1963 movement hit the students of WC a bit closer to home. While the protests stretched around town, one aspect of the movement was primarily targeted at businesses located on Tate Street, in the area known as “The Corner.”

Chancellor Otis Singletary

On February 27, 1963, 23 WC students (most African American) wrote Chancellor Otis Singletary asking him to immediately begin working towards desegregation of the Corner, a business area adjacent to the WC campus. The students wrote “This college has accepted us as students, therefore, as members of the Woman’s College community. Since we are accepted as such, we feel that the college has the responsibility of seeing that we receive the same privileges as any other member of this community. As of now, we are not granted such opportunities.” They added that “the decision to accept Negro students to Woman’s College implies the decision to give them your full moral support, not just a limited, partial support.”

The letter to Singletary earned a swift response. On March 13, he set up a meeting with a local business owner and Dean of Students Katherine Taylor. In the meeting, Singletary stressed that he recognized that he had no official authority to dictate policy to the business owners of the Corner, but he wished to request “unofficially that all students at the Woman’s College be served at the Corner eating places and admitted to the Cinema Theatre.” Singletary warned that, if the present segregationist policy continued, the students would likely begin picketing and boycotting these businesses.

On that same day - March 13, 1963 - the WC Student Government Association passed a resolution urging Singletary to "use his authority and influence as a college official" to convince owners of business on the Corner to desegregate their facilities. Specifically, they called out two restaurants - the Apple House and the Town and Country – as well as the Cinema Theatre on Tate Street. SGA’s resolution carried the same argument as the letter from the students to Singletary – the WC is integrated and its local businesses should be too.

SGA resolution calling for a boycott
of segregated businesses on Tate Street, 1963

 Three days later on Thursday, May 16, 1963, the WC SGA issued a call for "selective buying campaign" directed at the Tate Street merchants. On that same day, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants Association passed resolutions calling for equal access in all local businesses. Coinciding with a week of massive marches and demonstrations around Greensboro, approximately two dozen WC students picketed the offending Tate Street businesses they considered part of their campus community. One local businessman wrote Dean of Students Taylor that “it was disturbing, to say the least, to observe the fine looking young ladies harassing these local businessmen by parading before their places of business today … They appear determined to destroy our way of life and some of the business people whose taxes are educating them.”

Rallies and protests continued throughout Greensboro during the summer months. On May 22, 1963, more than two thousand African Americans of all ages and classes silently marched to downtown Greensboro to show their dedication to achieving racial equality, making it the largest march in the city’s history. A few days later, 1,643 white residents of Greensboro allowed their names to be published by the Greensboro Daily News in a full-page and partial-page ad in support of the integration of Greensboro’s businesses. On June 4, over five hundred students and adults joined North Carolina A&T student body president Jesse Jackson in a silent march. The next evening, Jackson led close to seven hundred African Americans to City Hall and was charged with “inciting a riot.” Protests continued throughout town, leading Greensboro Mayor David Schenk to issue an appeal to all businesses to desegregate immediately and for activists to halt their protests.

By June 13, eight more Greensboro restaurants chose to desegregate, making approximately one-quarter of local establishments open to African Americans. In July, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants Association insisted on a resolution calling for the immediate desegregation of all public spaces. And by the fall of 1963, close to 40 percent of Greensboro businesses had been integrated – including the institutions on Tate Street.

More information about the 1963 desegregation protests and marches – including more images and original documents – can be found at Civil Rights Greensboro.