Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee Records, 1960-1969

Description

Records of a committee established in 1961 by the mayor of Charlotte to help ease racial tensions and to assist in the gradual desegregation of public facilities. Includes correspondence, minutes, and clippings relating to the committee and its predecessor, the Friendly Relations Committee. Also contains material from state and national groups, including the North Carolina Mayor's Cooperating Committee, North Carolina Good Neighbor Council, National Citizens Committee for Community Relations, and the United States Conference of Mayors Committee on Community Relations. The collection is organized by committee. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee was first established by Mayor James Saxon Smith as the Mayor's Friendly Relationship Committee in 1960. The committee was formed in response to sit-in demonstrations at lunch counters led by Johnson C. Smith students in uptown Charlotte on February 12, 1960, which were organized to push Charlotte restaurants to desegregate and serve both black and white patrons. Mayor Smith established the committee to facilitate dialog between protestors and restauranteurs, who were able to come to an agreement and integrate many of Charlotte's restaurants in the early 1960s. Mayor Stanford R. Brookshire (1961-1969) broadened the scope of the committee to include issues of housing, education, equal opportunities for work, crime, and the impact of segregation on communities, and changed the name of the committee to the Mayor's Community Relations Committee in 1961. The committee's name changed again in 1969 to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee to reflect the broader membership through appointments by the chair of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee is composed of 60 members who are appointed for three-year terms. The appointments are made by the mayor of Charlotte and the chair of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners. The Committee's responsibilities include studying problems in the areas of human and community relations and promoting the quality of opportunity for all citizens. The collection is arranged in five series: I. Mayor's Friendly Relations Committee. II. Mayor's Community Relations Committee. III. North Carolina Organizations. IV. National Organizations. V. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee. Series V was not digitized as part of this project. The finding aid for the collection is available here: https://findingaids.uncc.edu/repositories/4/resources/444.

Series 1, Mayor's Friendly Relations Committee, 1960-1961
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Community Relations Committee was first established by Mayor James Saxon Smith as the Mayor's Friendly Relationship Committee in 1960 in response to sit-ins at lunch counters led by Johnson C. Smith students in uptown Charlotte on February 12, 1960. The committee was chaired by John R. Cunningham, director of the Presbyterian Foundation and retired president of Davidson College. James F. Wertz, pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church, served as vice chair.
Series 2, Mayor's Community Relations Committee, 1961-1969
John Cunningham served as the first chair of the Mayor's Community Relations Committee, and was succeeded by Warner L. Hall, senior minister of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, in 1965. Jack L. Bullard was hired as the committee's first executive director in 1968. Includes content relating to the 1965 bombings of the homes of prominent black Charlotteans Fred Alexander, Kelly Alexander, Sr., Reginald Hawkins, and Julius Chambers. Correspondents include George C. Wallace (4/5/65) and Robert F. Kennedy (6/24/63, 7/8/63).
Series 3, North Carolina Organizations, 1963-1967
Governor Terry Sanford appointed Stanford Brookshire as chair of the North Carolina Mayors Cooperating Committee in 1963 to help resolve racial problems in North Carolina. In 1964, the committee published The Negro in North Carolina, which furnished guidelines for dealing with racial problems at the local level. Brookshire served as a member of the North Carolina Good Neighbor Council, initiated by Sanford in 1963, with the twofold mission of "encouraging employment of qualified people without regard to race and urging youth to become better trained and qualified for employment".
Series 4, National Organizations, 1963-1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Stanford Brookshire to the National Citizens Committee For Community Relations in 1964 to augment the work of the Community Relations Service established by the Civil Rights Bill. Brookshire served as a member of the United States Conference of Mayors Committee On Community Relations, which was formed in 1963 to implement the organization's policy objective of easing intergroup tension in the nation's cities.