Civil Rights

William Sturkey

October 9, 2020

William Sturkey is an associate professor in the Department of History within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences and a recipient of the 2020 Hettleman Award for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement. He studies the history of race in the American South, with a focus on working-class, marginalized peoples. His book “Hattiesburg” is a biracial history of the Jim Crow era in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which played a central role in the Civil Rights Movement.

A History Suppressed

August 20, 2018

A dark time in our nation’s history, the period between the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction and 1950 saw thousands of African Americans murdered via lynching – predominantly in the South. Two UNC professors hope to honor these individuals by uncovering injustices that, for decades, have been systematically erased from public memory.

Proving Innocence: Lessons from The Wilmington Ten

December 12, 2016

In 1971, as civil rights battles raged across the South, 10 young men and women fought for fair treatment within Wilmington, North Carolina’s newly desegregated schools. UNC historian Kenneth Janken shares their story in his new book, “The Wilmington Ten: Violence, Injustice, and the Rise of Black Politics in the 1970s.”