Inventory of the Karen L. Parker Diary, Letter, and Clippings, 1963-1966
Collection Number 5275-z
Manuscripts Department, University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Contact Information:
- Manuscripts Department
- CB#3926, Wilson Library
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890
- Phone: 919/962-1345
- Fax: 919/962-3594
- Email: mss@email.unc.edu
- URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/
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Descriptive Summary
- Repository
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
- Creator
- Parker, Karen L.
- Title
- Karen L. Parker Diary, Letter, and Clippings, 1963-1966
- Call Number
- 5275-z
- Language of Materials
- Materials in English
- Extent
-
- Items: 4
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Administrative Information
- Acquisitions Information
- Received from Karen L. Parker of Greensboro, N.C., in April 2006 (Acc. 100391) and November 2007 (Acc. 100808).
- Processing Information
- Processed by: Nathalie Wheaton, May 2006
- Encoded by: Nathalie Wheaton, May 2006
- Revisions: Finding aid updated in February 2008 by Amy Roberson because of addition.
- Preferred Citation
- [Identification of item], in the Karen L. Parker Diary, Letter, and Clippings #5275, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Copyright Notice
- Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Online Catalog Headings
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
- African American college students--North Carolina--Chapel Hill.
- African American women journalists--Michigan.
- African American women journalists--North Carolina.
- African Americans--Michigan.
- African Americans--North Carolina--History--20th century.
- Barnett, Ross R. (Ross Robert), 1898-1987.
- Carmichael, Katherine Kennedy, 1912-1982.
- Chapel Hill (N.C.)--History--20th century.
- Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Race relations.
- Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Social life and customs.
- Civil rights demonstrations--North Carolina--Chapel Hill.
- Civil rights movements--North Carolina.
- Congress of Racial Equality.
- Diaries.
- Education, Higher--North Carolina.
- Grand Rapids (Mich.)--Race relations.
- Grand Rapids (Mich.)--Social life and customs.
- Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963--Assassination.
- Michigan--Race relations.
- North Carolina--Race relations.
- Parker, Karen L.
- Segregation in higher education--North Carolina.
- Student movements--North Carolina.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--African American students.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--History--20th century.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--Women students.
- Women college students--North Carolina--Chapel Hill.
- Women college students--North Carolina--History--20th century.
Related Collections
-
Ellyn Bache Papers (#4980)
Biographical Note
The first African-American woman undergraduate to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Karen L. Parker was born in Salisbury, N.C., and grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C. Parker worked for the Winston-Salem Journal before attending UNC-Chapel Hill. She majored in journalism and was elected vice-president of the UNC Press Club and served as editor of the UNC Journalist, the School of Journalism's newspaper, in 1964. After graduating in 1965, Parker was a copy editor for the Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich. She has also worked for the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers before returning to the Winston-Salem Journal. Ellyn Bache used Parker's diary when conducting research for her 1997 novel The Activist's Daughter about student activists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1963.
Back to TopCollection Overview
The collection is the diary, 5 November 1963-11 August 1966, of journalist Karen L. Parker of Winston-Salem, N.C. The entries appear regularly every few weeks in the beginning of the diary and gradually appear less often, ending with entries every several months. Parker began the diary while she was a student majoring in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of the first entries concerns the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, her observations of reactions in Chapel Hill, N.C., to the assassination, and her own thoughts and feelings about it. Diary entries describe her experiences as the first African American woman undergraduate to attend UNC-Chapel Hill, her involvement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), her participation in civil rights demonstrations against segregation in Chapel Hill, and her arrest after entering a segregated Chapel Hill restaurant. An entry dated 30 April 1964 describes the visit of former segregationist governor of Mississippi Ross R. Barnett to the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and his remarks about the inferiority of African Americans. The diary also includes entries detailing Parker's observations and experiences concerning race relations and discrimination in Grand Rapids, Mich., and her changing views of the civil rights movement as she considered the merits of self-defense as opposed to non-violent resistance. Entries throughout the diary describe her thoughts about where she belonged as an educated African-American female during the civil rights era.
The Addition of February 2008 consists of a letter from Katherine Kennedy Carmichael, Dean of Women at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to Karen L. Parker's mother, F.D. Parker, concerning Karen L. Parker's arrest on 19 December 1963. Also included are newspaper clippings about Karen L. Parker's accomplishments as a journalism student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Back to TopArrangement of Collection
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Diary, 5 November 1963-11 August 1966
Additions
Addition of February 2008
Detailed Description of the Collection
Diary, 5 November 1963-11 August 1966.
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Additions
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