title
Accept the Chapel Hill Nine Subcommittee Commemorative Marker Recommendation.
body
Staff:
Department:
Molly Luby, Special Projects Coordinator
Library
Jerry Neville, Traffic Engineering Technician
Public Works
Susan Brown, Executive Director for Community Arts and Culture
Library
Overview: On June 13, 2018, Town Council received the final report from the Historic Civil Rights Commemorations Task Force and authorized the Chapel Hill Nine Subcommittee to make a recommendation for a commemorative marker to Council in Fall 2018. This marker will commemorate Chapel Hill's first sit-in and the Chapel Hill Nine, the first young people arrested in Chapel Hill for demonstrating against segregation.
The purpose of this item is to provide the Council with the Subcommittee's recommendation, included in the attached report.
Recommendation(s):
That the Council accept the recommendation from the Chapel Hill Nine Subcommittee for a physical marker commemorating Chapel Hill's first sit-in and the Chapel Hill Nine, refer the recommendation to the Town Manager for implementation, and dissolve the Committee.
Key Issues:
* Historically, there has been a lack of clarity about who participated in Chapel Hill's first sit-in on February 28, 1960. The Chapel Hill Nine subcommittee's first goal was to reconcile historical accounts and to clarify the historical record based on primary sources, firsthand accounts, and existing oral histories.
* The subcommittee met a total of 12 times between June 26 and October 10, 2018 to review, question, and reach consensus on the historical record about events that occurred on February 28, 1960.
* Based on this work, the subcommittee has concluded that the Chapel Hill Nine were: Harold Foster (18), William Cureton (18), John Farrington (17), Earl Geer (16), David Mason Jr. (17), Clarence Merritt Jr. (17), James Merritt (16), Douglas Perry (17), and Albert Williams (16). Additionally, the subcommittee concluded that these nine young men...
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