North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation

The North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation was established in 1921 as a state affiliate of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation to work toward improved race relations in the state. Like its parent organization, the NCCIC, sought both to alleviate injustices and to change prejudiced racial attitudes. Its efforts included meetings with individuals, correspondence, press releases, radio programs, pamphlets, local meetings, and state-wide conferences. After closing its offices in 1949, the NCCIC became an affiliate of the Southern Regional Council in 1951 and, in 1955, changed its name to the North Carolina Council on Human Relations.

Following World War I, a group of southern churchmen established the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, based in Atlanta, Ga., to work toward improved race relations in the South. In 1921, a group of North Carolinians founded the North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation as a state affiliate of the CIC. With the governor as honorary chair, the group had quasi-official status. The NCCIC's first chair was William Louis Poteat, president of Wake Forest College, and its first director was L. R. Reynolds. Reynold's office was in Richmond, Va.; he was director of both the NCCIC and the Virginia CIC from 1920 to 1942.

The NCCIC, like its parent organization, sought both to alleviate injustices and to change prejudiced racial attitudes. Its efforts included meetings with individuals, correspondence, press releases, radio programs, pamphlets, local meetings, and state-wide conferences. It also encouraged the development of affiliated local committees, and by 1935, 50 such organizations were operating. The NCCIC was initially made up of a small group of prominent individuals, both African American and white, and mostly ministers and educators. The membership grew to 2,500 at its height, with representatives from every county and major town in the state. Chairs in the 1930s and 1940s included Professor Howard Odum and Episcopal Bishop Edwin Pennick. Directors who followed Reynolds were Reverend Ernest Arnold and Cyrus M. Johnson.

After World War II, various problems, perhaps most importantly internal disagreement over desegregation, led to the closing of the NCCIC offices in 1949. The organization continued to exist skeletally, and in 1951 technically became an affiliate of the Southern Regional Council. In the wake of the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954, the NCCIC was reorganized. In 1955, its name was changed to the North Carolina Council on Human Relations.

For additional information see material in folder 84 of this collection and Critical Years: The North Carolina Commission on Interracial Cooperation, 1942-1949, by Elizabeth Earnhardt, M.A. Thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1971.