 Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, organized in 1935 by C. C. Spaulding and Dr. James E. Shepard, has been cited nationally for its role in the sit-in movements of the 1950s and ‘60s. The committee also has used its voting strength to pursue social and economic rights for African Americans and other ethnic groups.
In the late 1950s, Reverend Douglas Moore, minister of Durham's Asbury Temple Methodist Church, along with other religious and community leaders, pioneered sit-ins throughout North Carolina to protest discrimination at lunch counters that served only whites. A sit-in at a Woolworth's counter in Greensboro, NC, captured the nation's attention. Within days, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. met Reverend Moore in Durham, where Dr. King coined his famous "fill up the jails" rallying cry during a speech at White Rock Baptist Church.
Advocating nonviolent confrontation with segregation laws for the first time, Dr. King said, "Let us not fear going to jail. If the officials threaten to arrest us for standing up for our rights, we must answer by saying that we are willing and prepared to fill up the jails of the South." Learn more about Durham's African-American heritage.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, what is now the world's largest university-related research park and namesake for the vast Triangle region was carved from Durham pinelands as a special Durham County tax district. Research Triangle Park (RTP) is encompassed on three sides by the City of Durham, with a small portion now spilling into Wake County toward Cary and Morrisville. RTP scientists have developed everything from Astroturf to AZT and won Nobel Prizes in the process. Now, over 170 major research and development companies, including Bayer, GlaxoSmithKline, IBM, Underwriters Laboratories, and agencies such as the EPA, employ more than 39,000 full-time employees.
Learn more about the history and architecture of Durham by consulting the North Carolina collection at the Durham County library.