Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

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Turbulent Times 1960-1979

1974 - Citizens Pull Together

The school board has failed to devise an acceptable busing plan, but the Citizens' Advisory Group has their own ideas. These parents, educators and concerned citizens have met many times. They convince the skeptics that their strategy can work. Now, they present their plan to Judge McMillan. He accepts the plan.

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1962 - Lake Norman

March 4, 1962  - Water trickles into a lake bed that has been dug along the Catawba River. By the time the dam is completed at a river crossing called Cowan's Ford in May, Lake Norman will be on its way to becoming North Carolina's largest man-made lake. It has been designed to provide water power that helps generate electricity for Mecklenburg County. In the future, homes and recreational areas be developed along Lake Norman. 

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1974 - Leading the Way on School Integration

October 15, 1974 - Nationally, Charlotte becomes known as the city that made integration work. School children write letters to Boston's newspaper, the Globe, and share their stories. After the letters appear in the Globe, the children are invited to visit Boston, a city still grappling with the problems of integration. 

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1963 - MLK in Charlotte

May 31, 1963 - A young, energetic black preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks in Charlotte to a gathering of six black high schools. Just 10 days earlier, Johnson C. Smith University students marched downtown to protest segregation, laws that separate people according to race. Black and white civic leaders responded to the protest by agreeing to have lunch together. Dr. King commends the solution that has begun to chip away at segregation in Charlotte's public places.

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1975 - Restoring Fourth Ward

Civic leaders realize the importance of residential living in the center city. Charlotte banks, led by NCNB and First Union, offer low-interest loans to people willing to restore Fourth Ward's older homes and develop new housing in the old neighborhood. The area will become a showplace and will be recognized as the first of Charlotte's local historic districts.

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1960 - Woolworth's Sit-In

February 1, 1960  - Four black college students refuse to leave Woolworth's whites only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, until they are served. Charlotte's Franklin McCain is one of the young men who takes part in this sit-in. These sit-ins becomes a frequent way to protest unfair segregation laws. Sit-in at Durham

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1963 - JFK Assassinated

November 22, 1963 - Bullets hit the car carrying John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas and kill America's 35th president. Only 46 years old, Kennedy had been a World War II Navy hero and a U.S. senator. He fought to eliminate schools separating students according to their race, called segregation. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is captured by police and killed the next day by Jack Ruby. But nothing can ease the nation's grief. 

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1975 - Arthur Smith

February 6, 1975  - Bluegrass musician Arthur Smith has long been a favorite performer on Charlotte's live WBT radio shows. Today, Smith wins almost $200,000 from Warner Brothers. The record company had used Smith's music as part of the song Dueling Banjos in the movie Deliverance, without obtaining permission or giving credit for the work. Arthur Smith with his son, Reggie, c. 1958

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1970 - City within a city

February 12, 1970  - Southpark opens on more than 100 acres of farmland southeast of downtown Charlotte. The new shopping mall greets 92,000 visitors its first day. Downtown stores will see a 25% drop in their sales the first year of Southpark's operation. The city's retail focus has begun to shift from away from its center city toward the suburbs. South Park Mall

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1965 - The Swann Case

January 19, 1965  - Darius and Vera Swann want their son, James, to attend school near the family's home. But since the Swanns are black, James is assigned to an all-black school farther away. Lawyer Julius Chambers files legal action against the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. The Swann case will have national impact: The nation must ultimately accept integration, which removes the boundaries that separate people according to race. Julius Chambers

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