1960s
The 1960s were a turbulent time in Charlotte, North Carolina as the fight for desegregation took center stage and tensions boiled over President Johnson's Civil Rights legislation. Several African-American students from Johnson C. Smith University, inspired by the sit-in at Woolworth's in Greensboro, staged a sit-in of their own at the lunch counter at the Kress store in Charlotte. This forces Mayor James Smith to form a committee to solve the problems caused by segregation. In 1961, Sam Brookshire, who will serve four terms as mayor of Charlotte and play an important role in desegregation and the re-development of downtown, is elected.
In 1965, Darius and Vera Swann file a lawsuit against the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system because their son, James, is not allowed to attend the school closest to them as it is an all white school and he is African-American. This case, known as the Swann case, receives national attention and eventually forces action to be taken against the unfair treatment of African-Americans in the city and across the South. This case was not solved, however, before the Swann family and the family of their lawyer, Julius Chambers, are attacked, with Chambers' car and house burned and the Swann family's house destroyed by fire, thankfully no one was killed. To illustrate the changes taking place in race relations by the end of the decade, the fence separating the white cemetery of Elmwood from the black cemetery of Pinewood is taken down after Mayor Brookshire casts the deciding vote in favor of removing it. Finally, in 1969, Mayor Belk is elected, signaling a new era in Charlotte politics. However, he will continue many of the same policies Mayor Brookshire had instituted relating to the development and improvement of downtown.
The 1960s were also a period of great transformation nationally in the lives of women and the women’s liberation movement. Women began to stand up and demand rights that had been denied to them for years. Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, in which she detailed the unhappiness of suburban housewives and how they felt trapped in their homes with no opportunities for meaningful careers. This book sparked the second-wave feminist movement that would last all the way through the end of the twentieth century. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, designed to guarantee women the same salary as men for the same work, however, this did not completely work in practice and many women are still denied equal pay. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination against women in hiring practices, giving women a legal basis to enter into traditional male occupations. Betty Friedan founded NOW (the National Organization for Women) in 1966 with the stated purpose of bringing women into full participation in society immediately with equal rights and opportunities with men.