Some people have really nice lives. For instance, the
guy who wrote us this letter got to read through five years worth of the Daily
Tar Heel from a dynamic period in history. Call us wacky, but we'd leap at the
chance. Anyway, he came across an interesting bit of history about Curry
Kirkpatrick that is definitely worth passing on. We'd love to see a copy of the
article which got him canned if he ever gets back over that way to research (or
if anyone else does). Apparently Curry hasn't changed much over the years.
Dear DBR -
When I was researching the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill during my senior year at UNC, I read about five years
worth of the Daily Tar Heel.
Whenever I went through the quieter periods of civil rights activity, I would occasionally scan the sports pages. Sometimes
I would find things that would provide a small commentary on the racial culture -- the biggest demonstration at UNC during the first half of the 60s
was a demonstration against demonstrations led by CORE; UNC's freshmen basketball team was referred to as the Tar Babies; the first black athlete in
UNC's history was a soccer player, preceding Charlie Scott by three years -- and then occasionally I would just find amusing articles on other events,
athletic and otherwise.
One of these was an article by Mr. Kirkpatrick. It seems that Curry, in his article preceding the first Cassius Clay-Sonny
Liston fight, penned an article speaking of how badly/quickly/decisively young Cassius was going to be demolished. In the aftermath of Clay's
victory, jeering letters to the editor prompted a furious and churlish response from Kirkpatrick, following which he was dismissed from his duties
as sports editor.
Just thought you might want to know that you might want to add the DTH to the list of periodicals that had dismissed Curry Kirkpatrick with a less than
honorable discharge. It goes back 35 years.
Keep up the good work.