- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with W. Horace Carter, January 17, 1976
- Creator:
- Carter, W. Horace
- Contributor to Resource:
- Lanier, Jerry
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1976-01-17
- Subject:
- Newspaper editors--North Carolina--Tabor City
Ku Klux Klan (1915- )--North Carolina--Columbus County
Vigilantes--North Carolina--Columbus County
Violent crimes--North Carolina--Columbus County
Law enforcement--North Carolina--Columbus County - People:
- Carter, W. Horace
- Location:
- United States, North Carolina, Columbus County, 34.2654, -78.65507
United States, North Carolina, Columbus County, Tabor City, 34.14878, -78.87669 - Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Walter Horace Carter grew up in Stanley County, North Carolina, during the 1920s and 1930s. He moved to Chapel Hill to earn a degree in journalism at the University of North Carolina, the pursuit of which was interrupted by his service in the Navy during World War II. In 1947, Carter became the secretary of the Tabor City Merchant's Association and moved to Tabor City, North Carolina, with his young family. Following a brief sojourn in Chapel Hill, where he helped establish the Colonial Press (which printed the UNC newspaper The Daily Tar Heel), Carter officially settled in Tabor City, becoming publisher and editor of the newly-created Tabor City Tribune. Shortly after the weekly newspaper debuted, the Ku Klux Klan began a virulent recruitment campaign in Columbus County, North Carolina, and in surrounding areas along the North Carolina-South Carolina border. The interview with Carter focuses almost exclusively on the actions of the Klan from 1950 to 1952 -- when members of the Klan were convicted for flogging numerous people -- and on Carter's journalistic campaign against their efforts. Carter describes in detail how the Klan campaign began during the summer of 1950 when they brought a motorcade through Tabor City with the intention of recruiting new members and intimidating African American neighborhoods. That summer, Grand Dragon Thomas L. Hamilton gave speeches around the area to recruit members and to outline the goals of the Klan. Carter stresses that the Klan during those years was not only outspoken in its opposition to African Americans, but that they also opposed Jews and Catholics, liberals such as Frank Porter Graham, and the newly formed United Nations. Carter explains that many people found various aspects of the Klan's message -- including its anticommunist stance -- appealing. In response to the Klan's vigilante tactics, Carter publicly attacked the Klan in weekly columns for the Tabor City Tribune and worked closely with others fighting the Klan, including Columbus County Sheriff H. Hugh Nance, fellow newspaper editor Willard Cole of the Whiteville, North Carolina, News Reporter, and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). Carter also spends considerable time enumerating the nature of threats, both economic and physical, he received from the Klan, his interactions with Klan leaders such as Grand Dragon Hamilton and Early Brooks, and connections between the Klan and local law enforcement, such as Horry County, South Carolina, Sheriff Ernest Sasser. In 1953, Carter and Cole were both awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their role in bringing to justice Klan members guilty of flogging. The interview concludes with Carter offering his thoughts on various social issues confronting the nation at the time of the interview in 1976, touching on such topics as school integration and busing, economic problems, the Equal Rights Amendment, and patriotism.
The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata. - Metadata URL:
- http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/B-0035/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on Oct. 31, 2008).
Interview participants: W. Horace Carter, interviewee; Jerry Lanier, interviewer.
Duration: 01:19:22.
This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.
Text encoded by Kristin Shaffer. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers. - Contributing Institution:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)
- Rights:
-
