Erwin Library – Wayne Community College | Goldsboro, NC

Hope we sea you at the next  Children’s Storytime in the Erwin Library on Wednesday, July 25^th from 9:00-10:00 a.m.  Fun will be off the scales as we dive into stories and songs about life under the ocean waves.  Swimming lessons not required!

From Batman to Spiderman, Catwoman to Wonder Woman, as of 2018 we have a whole army of super heroes in our popular culture universe.  But who was the first mighty visitor to capture our imaginations with otherworldly strength, mysterious origins, and yes, a cool costume with a flaring cape?  Yes, it was the Man of Steel himself, the last survivor of Krypton’s demise, Superman, known to most of his fellow toilers at the Daily Planet newspaper office as mild-mannered Clark Kent.  Still here, still fighting for “truth, justice and the American way” this first superhero was introduced 80 years ago in Action Comics issue #1, cover dated June 1938.

The creation of Jerry Siegel and his buddy Joe Schuster, children of Jewish immigrants to New York City, Superman’s character and imagined milieu were an amalgam of Hebrew language, Jewish religious traditions, and American idealism.  Costing ten cents in 1938, about $2.00 in today’s money, a copy of Action Comics #1 in pristine condition brought a little over three million dollars at a 2014 auction.  But, who cares?  It’s the much thumbed, read and nearly destroyed copies that have fired imaginations since they were first scarfed up boy eager children in 1938.  To feed your imaginations, you will find a selection of books about Superman, comics and other superheroes in the Circulation Desk exhibit area of the Erwin Library, ready for you to checkout and read.

Books currently on display in the library’s Reference area highlight another period of political upheaval for the U.S., the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, focused on the life and tragic deaths by assassination of three leaders, Medgar Evers (1925-1963), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) and Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968).

Born on July 2, 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi, Medgar Evers served in the U. S. Army during World War II, but upon returning home found himself unable to vote because of his skin color, when he and “five friends were forced away at gunpoint from voting in a local election.”  After graduating from Alcorn State University with a degree in business administration, “Evers applied to the then-segregated University of Mississippi Law School in February 1954. When his application was rejected, Evers became the focus of an NAACP campaign to desegregate the school, a case aided by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education 347 US 483 that segregation was unconstitutional. In December of that year, Evers became the NAACP’s first field officer in Mississippi. After moving to Jackson, he was involved in a boycott campaign against white merchants and was instrumental in eventually desegregating the University of Mississippi when that institution was finally forced to enroll James Meredith in 1962.

In the weeks leading up to his death, Evers found himself the target of a number of threats. His public investigations into the murder of Emmett Till and his vocal support of Clyde Kennard left him vulnerable to attack … On June 12, 1963, Evers pulled into his driveway after returning from an integration meeting where he had conferred with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that stated, “Jim Crow Must Go”, Evers was struck in the back with a bullet that ricocheted into his home. He staggered 30 feet before collapsing, dying at the local hospital 50 minutes later. Evers was murdered just hours after President John F. Kennedy’s speech on national television in support of civil rights.”

Born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia into a family of deeply religious, Baptist ministers, Michael Luther King, Jr. eventually became a minister himself. Nevertheless, his conviction to join the ministry was long in coming, and, when he finally came to the decision he, as his father did before him, adopted as his new first name “Martin” in honor of the German church reformer, Martin Luther.  As the leader of the Southern Leadership Conference, King was one of the most recognized and respected civil rights activists of the twentieth century.

“Through his activism and inspirational speeches he played a pivotal role in ending the legal segregation of African-American citizens in the United States, as well as the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”  As with Medgar Evers, King was also assassinated, in Memphis, Tennessee, on the morning of April 4, 1968.  “Martin Luther King Jr.’s life had a seismic impact on race relations in the United States. Years after his death, he is the most widely known African-American leader of his era. His life and work have been honored with a national holiday, schools and public buildings named after him, and a memorial on Independence Mall in Washington, D.C. “

Perhaps King’s most memorable public appearances occurred when he delivered the well-known “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the March  on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, on August 28, 1963.

“Robert Francis Kennedy, the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, was born on November 20, 1925 in Brookline, Massachusetts.  Educated as a lawyer, over the course of his own political career, Robert Kennedy served as the manager of his brother John’s senatorial (1952), then presidentail (1960) campaigns, as well as the U.S. Attorney General during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. During this time, Robert Kennedy became deeply involved in ending organized crime, the Vietnam War, and poverty in the United States. “He also became increasingly committed to helping African Americans win the right to vote, attend integrated schools and use public accommodations … In September 1962, Attorney General Kennedy sent US Marshals and troops to Oxford, Mississippi to enforce a federal court order admitting the first African American student – James Meredith – to the University of Mississippi. The riot that had followed Meredith’s registration at “Ole Miss” had left two dead and hundreds injured. Robert Kennedy believed that voting was the key to achieving racial justice and collaborated with President Kennedy in proposing the most far-reaching civil rights statute since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which passed eight months after President Kennedy’s death” by assasination in November 1963.

Later, after serving as a senator from New York, Robert Kennedy launched his own highly anticipated and hoped for presidential campaign. Only a few weeks after King’s assassination, however “Robert Francis Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California shortly after claiming victory in that state’s crucial Democratic primary. He was 42 years old. Although his life was cut short, Robert Kennedy’s vision and ideals live on today through the work of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial in Washington, DC.”

What did WCC students do in 1972? How about those hairdos .. and that’s the faculty! You’ll see it was a slightly different world, but still Goldsboro and still our school as you flip through thirteen newly digitized WCC Yearbooks (Yearbooks link) published between 1964 and 1985, now part of the WCC Historical Archives. You’ll also find the WCC Campus Voice newspaper (See: Newspapers) published between 1968 and 2008, and the WCC Renaissance literary magazine (See: Campus Publications) for 1985 through the present.