The Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC) was a student activist group in the southern United States during the 1960s, which focused on many political and social issues including: African-American civil rights , opposition to the Vietnam War , workers' rights, and feminism. It was intended, in part, to be Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) for Southerners and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for white students – at a time when it was dangerous for SDS to attempt to organize in the Deep South and when SNCC was starting to discuss expelling white volunteers. It was felt that students at the traditionally white and black colleges in the South could be more effectively organized separately than in an integrated student civil rights organization; however, this was controversial and initially opposed by advisors like Anne Braden. Sue Thrasher and Archie Allen of the Christian Action Fellowship were among the founders of the group, with the support of Bob Moses and others. At its inception, the group had close ties to controversial Louisville, Kentucky radicals Carl and Anne Braden and their organization, the Southern Conference Education Fund , but a deliberate effort was later made to put some distance between the SSOC and the Bradens to avoid the appearance that the SSOC was a Communist front.
49-696: After its founding, SSOC came to be formally tied to the SDS as a fraternal organization with a regional mandate in the South, and joint SDS-SSOC chapters existed at some schools like the University of North Carolina . A monthly organ, The New South Student , was published on a regular basis. In 1967, SSOC organizers led by Gene Guerrero and Lynn Wells , worked with TWUA on a unionization drive in North Carolina textile mills, involving more than 300 students in
98-664: A monthly newsletter—and engaging in small-scale discussions. An organizational conference was called by the editors of Progressive Labor to be held in New York City in July 1962. This gathering, held at the Hotel Diplomat , was attended by 50 people from 11 different cities and served to launch a formal organization, the Progressive Labor Movement. Rosen again delivered the main political report to
147-615: A newspaper called The Phoenix , to SSOC's list of publications. SSOC leased the historic camp at Buckeye Cove in Swannanoa, North Carolina from the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen and held many conferences there. SSOC conferences had a variety of topics but were a way for southern activists, who often felt isolated on the conservative and largely segregated campuses of the time to meet like-minded students from other places and draw strength and inspiration from their activities. Through
196-728: A part of which (RYM 1) later evolved into the Weather Underground . The PLP made extensive use of mass organizations (front groups) from its earliest years, through which it spread its ideas, raised funds and recruited new members. Among these were the Student Committee for Travel to Cuba (1963–64), which organized travel to post-revolutionary Cuba ; the Harlem Defense Council (1964), organized in response to racially oriented rioting in Harlem ;
245-511: A pitcher of water on Wilson's head while chanting "Wilson, you're all wet". According to the constitution adopted at the time of the PLP's formation in 1965, membership was open to anyone at least 17 years old who accepted the program and policies of the party, paid dues and required assessments and subscribed to party publications. Supreme authority within the organization was to be exerted by national conventions, held every two years. The convention
294-595: A resolution at an SDS convention condemning SSOC's "anachronistic" regionalism and breaking the ties between the organizations. The breakup of SSOC came in 1969, the same year that its counterpart New Left Organizations, SNCC and SDS, collapsed—in part because of the COINTELPRO efforts, but in larger part because the movement had grown so widespread that the organizational forms of the early 1960s were no longer able to handle it. What SSOC organizer Ed Hamlett called "the radical beer-drinking five" on southern campuses became
343-509: A school for performing artists. The oldest university, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , first admitted students in 1795. The smallest and newest member is the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics , a residential two-year high school, founded in 1980 and a full member of the university since 2007. The largest university is North Carolina State University , with 37,323 students as of fall 2023. While
392-448: A toy water-pistol machine gun and parade back and forth in front of the building. Everyone else stayed out of sight. The individual was arrested and subsequently released. Nothing more happened. Over time, radicals in SDS increasingly saw SSOC as too liberal and too timid. SSOC finally dissolved itself in 1969 as the result of an internal struggle with members of Progressive Labor , a Maoist sect, after members of PL had successfully passed
441-512: A traveling teach-in on Vietnam and American foreign policy that toured southern states between 1967 and 1969, SSOC helped to organize the antiwar movement in the south. The appearance of SSOC delegations at national antiwar marches always resulted in enthusiastic applause. For some Southern schools, even though SSOC had a presence, the numbers were so small in comparison to the size of the student bodies that it could not gain traction as anything but protest theatre. For example, SSOC organizers came to
490-567: A vehicle for propaganda, launching an effort to gain the signatures of 5,000 registered voters in New York City to put a PLP candidate on the ballot for the November 1963 election of the New York City Council . Although it did not manage to place its candidate on the ballot, the proto-PLP distributed more than 100,000 pieces of party literature in conjunction with the electoral campaign. The PLP remained of modest size throughout
539-654: Is contained in the State's first Constitution (1776), which provided in Article XLI That a school or schools shall be established by the Legislature, for the convenient instruction of youth, ... and all useful learning shall be duly encouraged, and promoted, in one or more universities, The state legislature granted a charter and funding for the university in 1789. Article IX of the 1971 North Carolina Constitution deals with all forms of public education in
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#1732772364452588-590: Is taken from its own website. The following universities became four-year institutions after their founding (date each became a four-year institution in parentheses): With the exception of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, the institutions that joined the University of North Carolina in 1972 did so under their current name. As of 1972, all public four-year institutions in North Carolina are members of
637-650: The Great Depression , the North Carolina General Assembly searched for cost savings within state government. Towards this effort in 1931, it redefined the University of North Carolina, which at the time referred exclusively to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ; the new Consolidated University of North Carolina was created to include the existing campuses of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State College (now North Carolina State University), and
686-642: The May 2nd Movement (M2M, established 1964), organized in opposition to the Vietnam War ; and other short-lived, issue-driven front groups. The PLP ended its previous political line supporting the Cultural Revolution and broke with the People's Republic of China in the spring of 1971 with the publication of an internal discussion bulletin for party members detailing eight points of disagreement with
735-412: The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics , the nation's first public residential high school for gifted students, was declared an affiliated school of the university. In 2007, the high school became a full member of the university. An asterisk (*) denotes acting president. Two asterisks (**) denotes chairman of the faculty. The legal authority and mandate for the University of North Carolina
784-566: The Progressive Labor Movement following a split in the Communist Party USA , adopting its new name at a convention held in the spring of 1965. It was involved in the anti- Vietnam War movement of the 1960s and early 1970s through its Worker Student Alliance faction of Students for a Democratic Society . The PLP publishes a fortnightly newspaper, Challenge . The PLP began as an organized faction called
833-419: The University of North Carolina at Charlotte , the University of North Carolina at Asheville , and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington . In 1971, North Carolina passed legislation bringing into the University of North Carolina all 16 public institutions that confer bachelor's degrees. This latest round of consolidation gave each constituent school its own chancellor and board of trustees . In 1985,
882-579: The Vietnam War . The SSOC button was a Confederate flag with black and white hands shaking in front of it. The hands were modeled on a handshake between SSOC organizer Archie Allen and SNCC chairman John Lewis. It was designed by an artist on the SNCC staff, Claude Weaver. SSOC had an extensive literature program, printing thousands of copies of pamphlets on civil rights, the Vietnam war, poverty and campus reform that were sold on campus literature tables across
931-437: The 1960s were predominantly from white, middle-class backgrounds, shunned drug use, and tended "to dress neatly and wear short hair", according to a 1971 House Internal Security Committee staff report. During the 1960s and 1970s, the PLP published a magazine called Progressive Labor, which first appeared as a monthly before shifting to quarterly and later bimonthly publication. The press run of Progressive Labor circa 1970
980-437: The 1960s, new members were additionally required to undergo three months of ideological training, usually in small group settings in individual houses. Owing in part to the significant economic and extensive time requirements expected of its members, the PLP has since its inception been a small cadre organization, with an "estimated hard-core membership" of about 350 in 1970, supplemented by numerous sympathizers. Members during
1029-625: The Chinese regime. These related to the softening of China's foreign relations towards Cambodia , North Korea , Romania , Yugoslavia , and the United States, its "complete elevation of the Black Panther Party as the revolutionary group in the United States" and its "total collusion with every nationalist fake the world over, from Nasser to Nkrumah ". During the 1970s, the PLP began to shape its activity around racism in
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#17327723644521078-595: The Progressive Labor Movement in January 1962. It was formed in the aftermath of a fall 1961 split in the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) that saw the expulsion of left-wing labor activists Milt Rosen (1926–2011) and Mortimer Scheer . Before his expulsion, Rosen was a prominent CPUSA functionary, serving as District Organizer for upstate New York from 1957 and Industrial Organizer for all of New York state from 1959. An initial organizational meeting
1127-547: The UNC System conferred over 75% of all baccalaureate degrees in North Carolina. Founded in 1789, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (at the time called the University of North Carolina) is one of three schools to claim the title of oldest public university in the United States . It closed from 1871 to 1875, faced with serious financial and enrollment problems during the Reconstruction era . In 1877,
1176-489: The United States, forming a mass organization called the Committee Against Racism (CAR). A CAR convention held in New York City in July 1976 drew 500 participants. The organization made use of aggressive direct action tactics against its perceived opponents, disrupting presentations by the controversial psychologist Arthur Jensen and the physicist William Shockley in the spring of 1976. The CAR were
1225-502: The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, connected with a few individuals and left buttons and flyers with them and then departed. Of the 26,000 students on campus, only about ten were recruited. Early in 1969, these individuals gathered in a highly resonant hallway and staged an "organizational meeting". On audiotape it sounded like hundreds were attending and a motion was made to follow SDS's example at Columbia University and take over
1274-561: The Woman's College (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). The three campuses came under the leadership of a single board of trustees and a single president, with "Deans of Administration" serving as day-to-day leaders of the three campuses. In 1945, the title "Dean of Administration" was changed to " Chancellor ." By 1969, three additional campuses had joined the Consolidated University through legislative action:
1323-595: The breakup of SSOC, two former members, Howard Romaine and Sue Thrasher, were instrumental in forming the Institute for Southern Studies with Julian Bond . Raymond Luc Levasseur , later the leader of the United Freedom Front , worked with the SSOC. University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the public university system for the state of North Carolina . Overseeing
1372-457: The campaign. In 1968, Gene Guerrero and Howard Romaine were among the SSOC activists involved in founding Atlanta 's widely circulated underground newspaper , The Great Speckled Bird . SSOC considered itself a distinctly Southern organization and sometimes embraced traditional Confederate symbols and language. In 1968, SSOC staged a series of antiwar protests called "Southern Days of Secession," in which they urged Southerners to "secede" from
1421-486: The campus Administration building the next day. The tape was "leaked" to the Administration of U.T. and, to the surprise of the participants, the next morning the campus was flooded with police, the windows of the Administration building were shuttered with wooden boards, and a truck was backed up to the doorway blocking entry while keeping the Administration locked inside. One of the members volunteered to brandish
1470-429: The decade. It did not publicize its membership, but federal income tax returns filed in 1967 and 1968 provide a reasonable proxy. The PLP formally existed as a publishing partnership listing Milt Rosen and the party's 1965 candidate for New York State Senate , Bill Epton , as partners. These returns showed income and expenditures of about $ 66,000 in 1967 and about $ 88,600 in 1968, with the partners claiming no income from
1519-451: The gathering, calling for the writing of a program and development of a network of clubs and affiliated mass organizations in order to win supporters for a new revolutionary socialist movement. Given the small size of the fledgling organization, formation of a political party was deemed unpropitious. The name "Progressive Labor Movement" was selected to emphasize the organization's early and transitional nature. The Progressive Labor Movement
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1568-507: The long-haired pot-smoking hundreds (or thousands), and instead of getting ideas from mimeographed pamphlets, they could turn on the nightly news and see massive demonstrations and dramatic trials like those of the Chicago 7. In the bitterness following the breakup of SSOC, the organization's papers were taken and burned, lest they fall into the hands of the FBI. This also threatened the memory of
1617-617: The most vocal of the hostile critics of the sociobiologist E. O. Wilson . The organization picketed in Harvard Square and handed out flyers calling for demonstrations against sociobiology, which in their view was being used to defend individuals and groups responsible for racism, war, and genocide. In 1977, the organization, now renamed the International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), made headlines by disrupting an academic conference by pouring
1666-572: The official names of each campus are determined by the North Carolina General Assembly, abbreviations are determined by the individual school. The enrollment numbers are the official headcounts (including all full-time and part-time, undergrad and postgrad students) from University of North Carolina website. This does not include the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, the figure for NCSSM
1715-487: The organization and its efforts with becoming historically extinct. However, in the 1990s, a graduate student at the University of Virginia, Gregg Michel, decided to write his dissertation on SSOC and began contacting and interviewing old activists, and organized a reunion of them in Charlottesville, VA in 1994. It turned out that many people had saved SSOC material, and were willing to donate them to an archive that
1764-625: The ostensible business relationship. During the 1960s, the PLP followed the international political line of the Chinese Communist Party and was described by commentators as " Maoist ". The organization carved out a niche in the anti-Vietnam War movement , with its Worker Student Alliance faction acting as rivals to the Revolutionary Youth Movement faction within Students for a Democratic Society ,
1813-494: The people of the State free of expense. Statutory provisions stipulate the current function and cost to students of the University of North Carolina. Within its seventeen campuses, UNC houses two medical schools and one teaching hospital, ten nursing programs, two schools of dentistry, one veterinary school and hospital, and a school of pharmacy, as well as a two law schools, 15 schools of education, three schools of engineering, and
1862-491: The privileges, rights, franchises, and endowments heretofore granted to or conferred upon the trustees of these institutions. The General Assembly may enact laws necessary and expedient for the maintenance and management of The University of North Carolina and the other public institutions of higher education. The General Assembly shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to
1911-523: The south. The bestseller was entitled "Vietnam: The Myth and Reality of American Policy." During the school year, it published a monthly magazine called The New South Student . One of the magazine's features was a series called "The Roots of Southern Radicalism", which featured stories on historic predecessors of SSOC back to slave revolts, the American revolution, the abolition movement, the Populists,
1960-685: The state of North Carolina began sponsoring additional higher education institutions. Over time, the state added a women's college (now known as the University of North Carolina at Greensboro ), a land-grant university ( North Carolina State University ), five historically black institutions ( North Carolina A&T State University , North Carolina Central University , Winston-Salem State University , Fayetteville State University , and Elizabeth City State University ) and one to educate American Indians (the University of North Carolina at Pembroke ). Others were created to prepare teachers for public education and to instruct performing artists . During
2009-529: The state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics , it is commonly referred to as the UNC System to differentiate it from its first campus, UNC-Chapel Hill . The university system has a total enrollment of 244,507 students as of fall 2021. UNC campuses conferred 62,930 degrees in 2020–2021, the bulk of which were at the bachelor's level, with 44,309 degrees awarded. In 2008,
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2058-523: The state. Sections 8 and 9 of that article address higher education. The General Assembly shall maintain a public system of higher education, comprising The University of North Carolina and such other institutions of higher education as the General Assembly may deem wise. The General Assembly shall provide for the selection of trustees of The University of North Carolina and of the other institutions of higher education, in whom shall be vested all
2107-577: The union organizing drives of the 1930s, and institutions and organizations like Highlander Center, Koinonia Farms, and the Southern Conference for Human Welfare . SSOC also organized a conference in Atlanta on Radical Southern History. SSOC had four chairmen during its five-year history: Gene Guerrero, Howard Romaine, Steve Wise, and Tom Gardner. During its last year, it changed the post to two secretaries, Mike Welch and Lyn Wells, and added
2156-461: The university. 35°54′31″N 79°2′57″W / 35.90861°N 79.04917°W / 35.90861; -79.04917 Progressive Labor Party (United States) Former parties Former parties Former parties The Progressive Labor Party ( PLP ) is an anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist communist party in the United States . It was established in January 1962 as
2205-463: Was approximately 10,000. The party also published Challenge , a publication likewise issued at changing intervals over the years. In 1970, the press run of this publication was approximately 75,000, according to the estimates of government investigators, with many of these copies unsold. Challenge remains in production today as a biweekly, issued under the same covers with its parallel Spanish language counterpart Desafío. The PLP also produces
2254-500: Was established at the University of Virginia Library. Michel's dissertation was published as Struggle for a Better South in 2004 and the memory of the organization was brought back from the brink of historic oblivion. The book was launched with a panel at the American Studies Association convention in Atlanta in 2004 that brought together many SSOC and SNCC activists (including all four SSOC chairmen). After
2303-554: Was finally reconstituted as the Progressive Labor Party at a founding convention held in New York City on April 15–18, 1965. A 20-member National Committee was elected, and Rosen became the party's founding chair. Organizational headquarters were established in New York City. Although it disdains parliamentarism as an end, the Progressive Labor Movement was quick to make use of the electoral process as
2352-646: Was held in December 1961, attended by 12 of the approximately 50 current and former CPUSA members identifying themselves as the "Call group". Rosen delivered a political report to the Cuban Revolution -inspired group urging the establishment of a new communist party in the United States to replace the CPUSA, which was characterized as irredeemably " revisionist ". The organization remained amorphous in its first months, publishing Progressive Labor —initially
2401-415: Was to elect a National Committee to handle matters of governance between conventions. The PLP's primary party unit was the "club", organized either on a shop, territorial, or functional basis. All party members were required to be active members of a club and bound by the principles of democratic centralism , in which decisions of higher bodies were considered binding on participants in lower bodies. During
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