'Let's do it in front of the courthouse': The historical impact of the Peace and Justice Plaza

In March 1964, civil rights activists James Foushee, John Dunne, LaVert Taylor and Patrick Cusick spent eight days on the lawn of the Franklin Street Post Office consuming nothing but water and cigarettes.  

In a leaflet written and signed by the participants, the four wrote they were holding a hunger strike to demand Chapel Hill public officials pass a Public Accommodations Ordinance that would end segregated employment and housing practices. 

“We hope that each of us, as we observe the final week of Lent, will ask ourselves the question: have I honestly and sincerely done all in my power to eliminate racial discrimination in Chapel Hill?” they said.

The protest is known as the Holy Week Fast, and, according to community historian Danita Mason-Hogans, was the beginning of a long history of civil rights demonstrations at the post office located at 179 E Franklin St.. That area is now known as the Peace and Justice Plaza.

The building was constructed in 1917 and remodeled in 1937 using funding from a New Deal program called the Works Progress Administration, Chapel Hill Historical Society Treasurer Thomas Jepsen said.

He said Chapel Hill’s Civil Rights Movement took off in the early 1960s, largely due to the efforts of Black students at Lincoln High School who led weekly marches ending at, what is now, the Peace and Justice Plaza.

“It seemed like a logical place,” Jepsen said. “If we're going to ask for justice, let's do it in front of the courthouse.”

By 1963, UNC students had joined the movement, and the number of people protesting weekly on the courthouse lawn increased.

Jepsen said the plaza’s proximity to UNC’s campus was part of why it became a gathering spot, and student organizations often held events there to bypass on-campus speaker bans put in place by the Board of Governors.

“Often the biggest protests are where it comes from a combination of student activists and folks from the local community, whether it's through the NAACP or another organization,” Molly Luby, Chapel Hill Public Library community history coordinator said. 

The Holy Week Fast was a prime example of this, and she said it came at an important time in Chapel Hill’s history when change hadn’t yet occurred, and locals were starting to tire of the activists.

“But at the same time, the local Black community showed up and supported the four young men who were sitting out there,” Luby said. “They brought them food and flowers and water.”

Jepsen said protests continued through the years, and during the Vietnam War, the local chapter of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, led by activist Charlotte Adams, held weekly peace vigils at the site from 1967 through 1973.

Community members proposed the idea of renaming the plaza in 2006, and Luby said there was a push to name the site after Adams and two other white activists who had participated in numerous protests at the site.

Mason-Hogans said Fred Battle, chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP at the time, petitioned the Town, with the help of the local Black community, to ensure the plaza was representative of the Black individuals who had first fought for civil rights there.

In September 2009, both the plaza and a granite tribute marker were dedicated to historical figures that fought for peace and justice in Chapel Hill, with 17 names currently inscribed in the tribute marker.

“True peace is not merely the absence of some negative force, it is the presence of justice,” the tribute marker reads, quoting from Martin Luther King Jr. 

Mason-Hogans said the Peace and Justice Plaza stands as a testament to the resistance of oppression that that was rooted in the Black Freedom Movement. The plaza has also expanded to include a new set of issues and concerns that are all rooted in social justice, she said. 

“[The] Peace and Justice Plaza is a beacon and a platform to call us to our better selves," Mason-Hogans said.

@sarahhclements

@DTHCityState | city@dailytarheel.com