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 Lawrence Carmen Roush papers #4431, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Lawrence C. Roush of Wilson, North Carolina, in December 1985, July 1986, and January 1987.

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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.

• American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.
• Atheism--North Carolina.
• Capital punishment--North Carolina.
• Church and state--North Carolina.
• Civil rights--North Carolina.
• Gun control--North Carolina.
• North Carolina--Religion--20th century.
• Religion and state--North Carolina.
• Roush, Lawrence Carmen, 1920-
• Social problems--North Carolina--History--20th century.

Lawrence Carmen Roush was born 1 July 1920 in Elmira, New York, the only son of an illiterate, Italian immigrant. During World War II, he served three years in the United States Navy. After the war, he attended Sampson College, Sampson, New York, 1948-1949. He graduated from George Washington University in May 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and began work on a master's degree there until his G. I. Bill funding ended in 1952.

From 1952 to 1954, Roush worked in the business department of the Library of Congress. In 1954 he became a traveling salesman for Lincoln Institute, a correspondence college in Illinois, retaining that position until 1979. (The organization went bankrupt in 1979.) During most of this period, he lived in Fayetteville and Wilson, North Carolina. In 1962, Roush began writing frequent letters to newspaper editors on various social, economic, and religious issues. Roush achieved much public attention because of his public opposition to religion and his dedication to Free Thought.

Correspondence, newspaper clippings, and other material documenting the life of Lawrence Carmen Roush, salesman, social activist, and militant atheist. Roush wrote prolifically to newspaper editors about various social, economic, and religious issues, 1960s-1985. These papers consist largely of clippings of Roush's letters to editors of North Carolina newspapers concerning religion, capital punishment, civil rights, gun control, prison reform, and other matters; and material concerning a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina to force the removal of a prayer from the official state highway maps.