Discovering NC’s History of Philanthropic Leadership
Image courtesy of www.torightthesewrongs.com
I recently met a young social justice-oriented professional from New York who left college early to move with her Mother to North Carolina because she loved the South so much. I was impressed and refreshed–it’s easy to become disillusioned with the grand-standing associated with Southern religion, politics and culture. Think Jesse Helms, Jim DeMint and Pat Robertson. Still, every region has its radicals and these characters have fans nation-wide.
As it turns out, I needed some educating regarding North Carolina’s legacy of progressive philanthropic, educational and political leadership. I was delighted to stumble across two recently published books that explore just that.
To Right These Wrongs by Robert Korstad and James Leloudis, explores NC Governor Terry Sandford’s establishment of the North Carolina Fund in 1963. The fund was a highly experimental, temporary philanthropic endeavor meant to progressively address poverty and inequality throughout the state. The fund also established controversial community organizing groups comprised of both white and black students from all over the state that served as a model for the VISTA national service organization.
Additionally, Jim Hunt: A Biography, by Gary Pearce, highlights NC’s longest serving Governor’s pursuit of progressive initiatives in education and social policy, ushering North Carolina from a poor, rural state dependent on tobacco and textiles to a center for finance and high-tech industry. Though Hunt lost his bid for the U.S. Senate to the aforementioned Jesse Helms, his legacy includes NCSU’s Centennial Campus and the Jim Hunt Library, the Institute for Emerging Issues and, like former Governor Terry Sandford, recognition as a forerunner of North Carolina’s movement of progressive philanthropic and public sector leadership.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: Community Development, NC Triad, NC Triangle, Nonprofit
Thanks for the kind words about To Right These Wrongs. The progressive legacy you describe is something we desperately need to recall and recover as we seek to chart our way through a new era of rising poverty and inequality.
Dr. Leloudis,
Thanks for stopping by and more importantly, thanks for yours and others’ work to share this fascinating history! I’m glad to have found your work and enthusiastically support the movement of recovering our progressive legacy.