Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Billy Brown Olive Papers #5453, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Billy Brown Olive of Durham, N.C., in January 2010 (Acc. 101244).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Kiley Orchard, April 2010

Encoded by: Kiley Orchard, April 2010

Updated by: Nancy Kaiser, September 2023

This collection was processed with support from Elizabeth Moore Ruffin.

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• African American neighborhoods--North Carolina.
• African Americans--North Carolina.
• City planning--North Carolina.
• Community activists--North Carolina.
• Community development--North Carolina.
• Crest Street Community (Durham, N.C.)
• Durham (N.C.)--History.
• Durham (N.C.)--Maps.
• East-West Freeway (Durham, N.C.)
• Environmental justice--North Carolina.
• Express highways--Social aspects--North Carolina.
• Interstate 40--Environmental conditions.
• Lawyers--North Carolina.
• North Carolina--Photographs.
• Olive, Billy Brown, 1921-
• Orange County (N.C.)--History.
• Orange County (N.C.)--Maps.
• Regional planning--North Carolina.
• Research Triangle Park (N.C.)--History.
• Sanitary landfills--Environmental aspects--North Carolina.
• Sanitary landfills--North Carolina.
• Waste disposal in the ground--Environmental aspects--North Carolina.

Billy Brown Olive of Durham, N.C., was a white attorney who specialized in patent and intellectual property law. He received his degree in electrical engineering from Duke University in 1948 and went on to work with the Westinghouse Electric International Company in New York. It was during his time in New York that Olive earned his law degree from Saint John's University. He worked for Fieldcrest Mills in Leaksville, N.C., before establishing Olive & Olive in 1957, the first patent law firm to serve the Research Triangle Park area. For the next 15 years, he also taught proprietary and engineering law classes at the Duke School of Engineering and the School of Product Design at North Carolina State University.

For more than 40 years, Olive was involved in civic affairs, specifically those relating to the environment. Locally, he was involved in the opposition of specific routes of Interstate 40 in Orange County, N.C., serving as coordinator with Opposition to I-40 in Orange County. He also opposed the Eubanks Road landfill site in Orange County and the East/West Expressway route through the historically African American Crest Street community in Durham. In addition, Olive founded the North Carolina Bar Association's committee on intellectual property law. He received military awards from both the United States and France, an award for civic service from the State of North Carolina, the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, and the Charles Korstian Award of the Nicholas School of the Environment.

The Billy Brown Olive papers include materials on environmental and social issues of interest to Olive, specifically his opposition to the Interstate 40 construction through Orange County, N.C.; the proposed landfill site near Eubanks Road in Orange County; and the proposed extension of the East/West Expressway (North Carolina Highway 147) through the historically African American Crest Street community in Durham, N.C. Interstate 40 papers consist of Olive's office files related to Interstate 40 construction through North Carolina, including correspondence, meeting minutes of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, newspaper clippings, maps of routes, and petitions. Landfill site materials relate to the proposed placement of an Orange County landfill near Eubanks Road in Orange County, and include court documents, letters of opposition written by Olive, newspaper clippings, landfill drawings, and publications and reports. Crest Street papers include correspondence; court documents, specifically those related to the Save Our Church and Community Committee of Durham; maps of Duke Forest; publications and reports; and additional correspondence relating to I-40 construction in Durham. Also included is material related to the Orange County Municipal Waste Project, chiefly consisting of correspondence of Olive with state and local officials, newspaper staff, educators, and the Landfill Owners Group, but also including studies and reports on waste management. There are a few related photographs scattered throughout the collection.

• Oversize paper folder (OPF-5453/1-3)
• Extra oversize paper folder (XOPF-5453/1-2)
• Rolled item (R-5453/1)