Karen L. Parker diary, letter, and clippings, 1963-1966.

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Karen L. Parker diary, letter, and clippings, 1963-1966.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/69679342

Karen L. Parker's diary with entries 5 November 1963-11 August 1966. The entries appear regularly every few weeks in the beginning of the diary and gradually appear less often, ending with entries every several months. Parker began the diary while she was a student majoring in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of the first entries concerns the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, her observations of reactions in Chapel Hill to the assassination, and her own thoughts and feelings about it. Diary entries describe her experiences as the first African American woman undergraduate to attend UNC-Chapel Hill, her involvement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), her participation in civil rights demonstrations against segregation in Chapel Hill, and her arrest after entering a segregated Chapel Hill restaurant. An entry dated 30 April 1964 describes the visit of former segregationist governor of Mississippi Ross R. Barnett to the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and his remarks about the inferiority of African Americans. The diary also includes entries detailing Parker's observations and experiences concerning race relations and discrimination in Grand Rapids, Mich., while copy editor for the Grand Rapids Press and her changing views of the civil rights movement as she considered the merits of self-defense as opposed to non-violent resistance. Entries throughout the diary describe her thoughts about where she belonged as an educated African-American female during the civil rights era. The Addition of February 2008 consists of a letter from Katherine Kennedy Carmichael, Dean of Women at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to Karen L. Parker's mother, F.D. Parker, concerning Karen L. Parker's arrest on 19 December 1963. Also included are newspaper clippings about Karen L. Parker's accomplishments as a journalism student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

4 items.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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SNAC Resource ID: 7998690

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Related Entities

There are 6 Entities related to this resource.

Congress of Racial Equality

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d904dp (corporateBody)

Downtown CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), a chapter of the CORE national organization, was formed in March 1963 and remained active until the end 1966. Based on Manhattan's Lower East Side, it was one of nearly a dozen New York City local chapters organized in the early 1960s. Its founders included Rita and Michael Schwerner (the latter one of the group of three civil rights workers murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1964), and its members included radical pacifist Igal Rodenko, anarchi...

Barnett, Ross R. (Ross Robert), 1898-1987

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gx4grn (person)

Ross Robert Barnett (1898-1987) was the Governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. From the description of Barnett, Ross R. (Ross Robert), 1898-1987 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration). naId: 10573051 ...

Parker, Karen L.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62j9c8h (person)

The first African-American woman undergraduate to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Karen L. Parker was born in Salisbury, N.C., and grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C. Parker worked for the Winston-Salem Journal before attending UNC-Chapel Hill. She majored in journalism and was elected vice-president of the UNC Press Club and served as editor of the UNC Journalist, the School of Journalism's newspaper, in 1964. After graduating in 1965, Parker was a copy editor for the Grand R...

Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6387zpq (person)

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy of Brookline, Massachusetts. John Kennedy, the second of nine children, attended Choate Academy (1932-1935), Princeton University (1935-36), Harvard College (1936-40), and Stanford Business School (1941). In 1940, he published a book based on his senior thesis entitled "Why England Slept." The book criticized British policy of Appeasement. In 1941, Kennedy enlisted in the Navy. In August 1943, Kenn...

Carmichael, Katherine Kennedy, 1912-1982

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6q270gz (person)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6d54b72 (corporateBody)