Interview with John Lafferty [electronic resource] 2004 October 11 / interviewer: Lois Stickel [i.e. Stickell], Bridgette Sanders ; transcriber: Ruth F. Griffin.

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Interview with John Lafferty [electronic resource] 2004 October 11 / interviewer: Lois Stickel [i.e. Stickell], Bridgette Sanders ; transcriber: Ruth F. Griffin.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/506360792

'John Lafferty relates his thoughts growing up in a segregated Charlotte, N.C. and vivid memories of visiting the Brooklyn neighborhood with his father. He describes attending the all-white McCallie School, while assuring the interviewers that it was not an overtly racist school. He uses an an example the incident where an African American man was accused of raping a white woman in Chattanooga. He was convicted but a young African American lawyer appealed the case to the Supreme Court. When the convicted man was lynched, the headmaster, Dr. McCallie, sheltered the young lawyer in the McCallie home. Lafferty describes other first hand experience with the turbulent '60s, including discussing Alan Stoudemire's book about the desegregation of Lincolnton High School. UNC Charlotte was not yet integrated school when Lafferty started in 1966 as a sophmore. He remembers UNC Charlotte as being an intense and great place and academically rigorous. He considers his professors such as John Robbins and Dan Morrill as bright young faculty. Bonnie Cone personally befriended all students. Lafferty and others started the first Rotaract Club in the world on the UNC Charlotte campus. Ronald Caldwell became a member of this group. Lafferty was part of a group of students who were instrumental in starting a track team. They were joined by such fellow students as Ben Chavis, T.J. Reddy, and Maurice McClettie. Lafferty recounts their experiences on and off the track. He reveals how McClettie became known as "the folding colored boy." The Vietnam War was at its height during this period. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968. In the Fall of 1968, Lafferty remembers returning to classes to see major changes in his African American teammates. Chavis, who had been clean-cut when Lafferty first met him, had changed his looks radically and carried Mao's book with him. T.J. Reddy and Ronald Caldwell had also become radical in appearance and opinions. Ben Chavis was instrumental in starting Students for Action. Lafferty recounts the events which unfolded when Stokley Carmichael appeared on campus and ben Chavis took over the Parquet (later Lucas) Room for a meeting. It was open only to African American students until Ms Cone pushed a guard away and walked in. Lafferty describes the resulting case against Chavis which was taken to student court, where Lafferty was the chief justice. Lafferty ends with summaries of later campus demonstrations, riots, Wilmington, Lazy B barn burning, etc.

University of North Carolina, Charlotte, J. Murrey Atkins Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 7630390

University of North Carolina, Charlotte, J. Murrey Atkins Library

Related Entities

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Carmichael, Stokely, 1941-1998

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Stokely Carmichael was born in Trinidad and moved to New York City with his family in 1952. In 1964 he graduated from Howard University with a B.A. in Philosophy; the same year he became a field secretary of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1966 he was elected chairman of SNCC....

Cone, Bonnie E., 1907-2003

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Born June 22, 1907 in Lodge, S.C. Graduated from Coker College (B.S., 1928) and Duke University (A.M., 1941). Served as president of Charlotte College (1961-1965). Named acting chancellor of University of North Carolina at Charlotte (July 1965) and became vice chancellor for student and community relations (April 1966). Retired as vice chancellor in 1973. From the description of Papers, 1955- (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 19618313 ...

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Lafferty, John (John Ogden), 1947-

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Stoudemire, Alan

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Kennedy, Robert F. (Robert Francis), 1925-1968

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Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also referred to by his initials RFK and occasionally by the nickname Bobby, was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. Senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968. He was the brother of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Senator Edward Moore Kennedy. Kennedy and his brothers were born into a wealthy,...

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American Students for Action.

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Sanders, Bridgette (Bridgette Tapley), 1962-

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Caldwell, Ronald R.

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Chavis, Ben, 1948-

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Benjamin Franklin Chavis, Jr, was born on January 22, 1948, in Oxford, North Carolina. Chavis's parents were educators who taught at a school for African American orphans. Chavis's activism was in his bloodline; his grandfather, John Chavis, the first black graduate from Princeton University, set up an underground school for African Americans who were forbidden to learn to read and write. Chavis became active in civil rights at the young age of thirteen when he attempted to integrate the all whi...

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Reddy, T. J., 1945-

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Poet, author, artist, and civil rights activist. Born August 8, l945 in Savannah, Ga. Received a B.A. in history and sociology in 1974 and an M.A. in education in 1977 from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Since 1982, owner of Ready Art Shoppe in Charlotte, N.C. From the description of Papers, 1967-1979. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 20806122 ...

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Robbins, John Brawner, 1938-

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Morrill, Dan L.

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Stickell, Lois (Lois Walker), 1951-

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