Making Our Voices Heard

In the 18th century, only landowning men could vote. Individuals traveled to their county seat to vote out loud in front of the sheriff, the candidates, and their supporters. James Hunter, a landowner in modern-day Guilford County, helped lead a group of poor White farmers in the Regulator movement - a revolt against local officials. Hunter helped deliver several Regulator petitions between 1766 and 1771. Among other reforms, the Regulators wanted to change elections. In 1769, Hunter organized Regulators to have their own candidates run for office. They succeeded in electing allies and blocking several opponents from winning.

Pauli Murray was born in Baltimore in 1911 and moved to Durham, N.C. in 1913. After being the only woman in her class at Howard’s law school, Murray became the first African American to receive a J.S.D. degree from Yale Law School. She served as counsel for various civil rights cases, working to challenge discrimination based on gender and race.

Dr. Brown’s extensive legacy of racial uplift includes a unique blending of educational ideologies and women’s club work. She traveled extensively, speaking on behalf of women and African Americans and was president of the North Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs from 1935 to 1937.

In 1930, Henry Owl was a U.S. Army veteran and a recent graduate with a master’s degree in history from the University of North Carolina. When Owl attempted to register to vote, the Registrar refused, claiming he was illiterate and not citizens. Owl reported his disenfranchisement in an affidavit submitted to the 71st Congress. While his testimony helped pass an act to confer full citizenship rights upon Cherokee Indians residing in North Carolina, state discrimination continued until soldiers returning from World War II protested.

Thomas Peters was born in Africa around 1738, likely in present-day Nigeria. He was kidnapped and trafficked to French Louisiana by French enslavers. Around 1760, a Scottish enslaver brought Peters to Wilmington, NC. Working as a Millwright when the British came to the Cape Fear region in 1776, Peters and around 70 other enslaved people self-emancipated by joining the British Black Pioneer Company. He rose to the rank of sergeant, was wounded twice, and fought the duration of the Revolutionary War with the British. After the British defeat, he fled to Nova Scotia, Canada. In 1792, after disputes over land grants, Peters and 1200 free Black people traveled to Africa, founding Freetown in modern-day Sierra Leone. 

In 1947, Joe Lewis and four other Black World War II veterans took a stand to register to vote. Laws passed in North Carolina in 1900 took away Black citizens’ voting rights. As Lewis and the other veterans arrived to register to vote, a group of White men immediately met them with hostility and threats. Once inside, the registrar asked Lewis to read a portion of the Constitution - a common test. Lewis read the three paragraphs, but the registrar replied that the group still could not register. The men went home, but then returned immediately to attempt registration again and were eventually allowed. After their efforts, Lewis stated it became significantly easier for Black people to vote in his district.

After contracting polio as a child, Ronald Mace used a wheelchair. Upon his graduation from North Carolina State University, Mace promoted a principle he called “Universal Design,” the idea that design for the needs of people with disabilities—things like levered door handles, curb cuts, automated doors, and drinking fountains at different heights—benefit everyone. In 1974, Mace founded the Raleigh firm Barrier Free Environments. His 1974 Illustrated Handbook of the Handicapped Section of the North Carolina State Building Code modeled Universal Design concepts.

Dr. Willa B. Player was a transformative figure in the struggle for voting rights in North Carolina. Born in 1909, she dedicated herself to education and social justice in the state's civil rights movement. In 1956, she became president of Bennett College, a historically Black college for women in Greensboro, N.C. Under her leadership, Bennett became a hub for civil and voting rights activism. In 1966, President Johnson appointed Dr. Player to be the first female director of the Division of College Support in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Golden Frinks was born on April 26, 1920 in South Carolina and later became heavily active in North Carolina's local, regional, and national civil rights campaigns, earning him the nickname “The Great Agitator.” Frinks was a leader of the Edenton Movement and persistently spoke out against discriminatory practices, called for the desegregation of local businesses and public spaces, and decried anti-picketing laws passed by the town council. These actions led to many arrests of Edenton’s Black citizens, including Frinks himself. In 1963, he became a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Frinks was a champion for civil rights until his death on July 19, 2004.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree was born in Charlotte, NC in 1914. Following her father's death, Dovey's family went to live with her maternal grandmother, who placed Dovey in the orbit of powerful Black activists and educators like Mary McLeod Bethune. After serving in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during WWII, she enrolled in Howard University's law school in 1947. During her first year of legal practice, Dovey and her partner Julius Winfield Robertson argued on behalf of Sarah Keys, a native of North Carolina, in Keys vs. Carolina Coach Company. The Keys decision defined segregation against Black travelers as an assault on their personhood. Dovey and her legal partners defended Black clients in both civil and criminal matters during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1961, she became an ordained minister in the AME church. Dovey died at the age of 104 in 2018.

Lillian Exum Clement was born in Buncombe County in 1894. She studied law and became the first woman to practice law without male partners in N.C. In 1920, she defeated two male opponents in the Democratic primary, and won the general election to a seat in the N.C. House. While in office, she introduced a bill shortening the amount of time before abandoned women could file for divorce.