Staff Pick: Charles E. Davis Oral History
Staff Person: Patrick Cash
Collection: Oral History Collection: Charles E.Davis Oral History, University Archives #UA95-20
In celebration of Black History Month, Special Collections at East Carolina University will be doing a special series of blog posts focusing on African American-related materials found in our collections.
Class photo of Charles E. Davis from the Buccaneer, 1968.
Click here to listen to the Charles E. Davis Oral History
Charles E. Davis was born in 1946 in Wilson, North Carolina, and was raised in an African American community known as “Daniel Hill.” Davis’ father passed away when Davis was six years old, and his mother worked at the Export tobacco warehouse and as a domestic worker in white homes to support Davis and his eleven siblings. Davis speaks more about his early life in Wilson, North Carolina, in an interview available through Barton College’s Willis N. Hackney Library.
The Negro Students’ Grievance Committee presented this list of demands to East Carolina’s administration in 1968. Charles Davis served as the committee’s chairman.
Davis enrolled in East Carolina College in the fall of 1965 and eventually became a campus leader amongst the African American student body, as well as a vocal supporter of the Civil Rights Movement and racial equality on campus. During his time at East Carolina, Davis served as chairman of the Negro Students Grievance Committee and was the first president of the Society of United Liberal Students (SOULS). He also frequently used student publications such as the East Carolinian for his advocacy, submitting written pieces to the paper, denouncing such things as the playing of the song “Dixie” at campus athletic events, the appearance of the Confederate flag on campus, and the blatant racism that Davis and his fellow African American classmates were forced to deal with daily, along with many other issues. Due to an academic issue, Davis left East Carolina during the summer of 1968, eventually enrolling at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) in the fall of 1970. Davis graduated from NCCU in the spring of 1973.
In this interview with John Tucker, Ph.D., a faculty member in the History Department, Davis speaks about his
March 26, 1968, East Carolinian article announcing the formation of the Society of United Liberal Students (SOULS). Charles Davis served as the first president of the organization.,
involvement in the Civil Rights Movement as a high school student, and his time at East Carolina, including his involvement with student organizations such as SOULS. Davis speaks at length about events that he participated in such as the confrontation that happened during the dedication ceremony of Minges Coliseum and also about his relationship with Chancellor Leo Jenkins. In addition to his time and work as an activist at East Carolina, Davis talks about his work within the larger eastern North Carolina community-including the time when the Ku Klux Klan and the local sheriff’s office confronted a group of African American students from East Carolina who had traveled to Falkland, North Carolina, to work with the local African American community there. Davis recalls how after the initial group of five students were harassed and told to return to “wherever you’re from,” a much larger group that consisted of African American and white students, along with members of the East Carolina faculty, returned to the town.
To learn more about Charles Davis and his time at East Carolina, you can read his profile on ECU Chronicles: Our History. To learn more about the Society of United Liberal Students and the work they did on campus, view a recent Special Collections blog post here. To learn more about the Civil Rights Movement on ECU’s campus, take a look at The Pursuit of Civil Rights at East Carolina: A Timeline, a project curated by University Archives.