“Senator Sam Ervin and the 1964 Civil Rights Act” was created by students in Ashley Reed’s Fall 2013 English 105 course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It presents photos and transcriptions of constituent letters from the Sam Ervin Papers in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC’s Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library. These letters and Ervin’s responses relate specifically to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (which Ervin opposed) and offer a unique window on an important moment in twentieth-century history. We have presented them here alongside contextualizing materials about the ongoing struggle for civil rights in the United States.
The project was designed in collaboration with faculty and staff from the UNC Libraries. We particularly wish to thank
- Matthew Turi, Manuscripts Research and Instruction Librarian for the Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library
- Anne Gilliland, UNC Libraries Scholarly Communications Officer
- Josiah Drewry, Social Sciences Subject Librarian at Davis Library
- Leslie Barnes and Mike Millner of the Carolina Digital Library and Archives
- UNC Instructional Technology Services
Questions about the project should be directed to the instructor, Ashley Reed.