Frank Porter Graham by William A. Link

Author:William A. Link [Link, William A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), Political Science, American Government, State, Biography & Autobiography, Educators
ISBN: 9781469664941
Google: Q4spEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2021-10-14T02:44:55+00:00

10

The Anti-Communist Attack

On February 16, 1948, Graham returned to Chapel Hill. Although he would continue for the rest of the month shuttling between North Carolina, New York, and Washington, his return provided a dramatic moment. After a miscommunication with Hubert Robinson, Graham arrived by an evening train from Washington to Raleigh and took a Trailways bus from the Raleigh station to Durham. For much of the bus ride, characteristically, he took off his hat and stood. About 500 students, in a spontaneous parade led by the UNC band and cheerleaders from the Y Court to Raleigh Street, welcomed him back to campus. Marching to “Onward Christian Soldiers,” the group gathered on the lawn of the President’s House. Graham appeared at the front door, according to one account, “a little, hatless man in a black overcoat, smiling, waving his hand.” After UNC student body president Tom Eller provided an official welcome and shook Graham’s hand, the account continued, the university president spoke “in his soft voice and the crowd stilled.” He solemnly declared that it was “great to be back in Chapel Hill, for there is no place quite like it.” He hoped that he could “come back here soon for the rest of my life.”1

Graham would find no settled life in his immediate future, nor did he really want to relinquish the excitement of public affairs that took him away from Chapel Hill. In fact, he faced the most serious threat to his leadership from his conservative critics, who linked his liberalism to alleged Communist subversion. His critics had gathered momentum during and immediately after the war. In August 1946, the Chicago Tribune’s Washington correspondent, Willard Edwards, described a “new force” in American life, a “combination of radicals and men of wealth with extensive ties in the publishing and radio worlds.” Along with northeastern liberals, Hollywood “riches” lay behind this powerful force, claimed Edwards, who was an isolationist and anti-Communist. The movement for world government, he wrote, had invaded politics at home in an attempt to defeat candidates who were opposed to the surrender of national sovereignty. Certain “men of means” did not realize that “many of their associates are members of communist front groups.” Edwards included Graham in this list of “men of means.” Liberals like Graham, though “dupes,” were culpable, Edwards believed.2

During the late 1940s, accelerating anti-Communist attacks tainted New Deal liberalism with subversion. With the advent of the Cold War, anti-Communism targeted the left, and, in the South, served as a tool for segregationists, who charged that subversion converged with disloyalty about segregation. Graham seriously underestimated the power of this convergence, which during the late 1940s resonated with the public at large. Disquiet about his national and international presence reflected a new political environment in North Carolina and the South. Graham’s lifelong reliance on personal goodwill, democratic free speech for all, and racial moderation no longer worked in the rapidly changing North Carolina of the postwar years. Displaying an uncertain allegiance to the racial apartheid regime when

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.