On November 10, 1898, the year’s white supremacy campaign culminated with a violent political coup in Wilmington, marking the onset of the Jim Crow era of segregation in the state. Though traditionally termed a “race riot,” many have called the event a massacre.
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On November 10, 1945, Yvonne Vaughan, better known by her later stage name Donna Fargo, was born in Mount Airy.
After growing up in North Carolina, Vaughan moved to California, where she finished college and began teaching English by day and singing in Los Angeles clubs by night. She met Dan Silver who agreed to be her manager and, shortly, her singing career took off.
On November 10, 1739, Wilmington merchant James Murray wrote his friend Henry McCulloh about the promising prospect for settlement by Scots in the upper Cape Fear region. Murray himself had been in America for only four years and wished to see his fellow Scots populate the backcountry.
On November 10, 1903, Drexel Furniture was founded by six partners in the small Burke County town of Drexel. One of the partners, Samuel Huffman, managed the business until his death in 1935. At that time, his son Robert took control of the operation.
A 1970 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development advertisement for Soul City.
On November 9, 1973, civil rights activist Floyd McKissick broke ground on Soul City in rural Warren County.
On November 9, 1979, Louise Thaden, early aviation pioneer, died of a heart attack in High Point.
One of the first women to make flying her business, Thaden flew her first solo flight and received her pilot’s license in 1927. By 1928 she set the woman’s altitude record at 20,260 feet, and the next year she claimed the woman’s endurance record after flying for 22 hours, 3 minutes and 28 seconds. That same year she was the first woman to win the National Air Races.
On November 8, 1950, internationally-renowned photographer and painter Ignatius Brock died at age 83.
Born in Jones County in 1866, Brock got his start in photography as an apprentice at the Gerock Studio in New Bern. He moved to New York to study art at the Cooper Union Institute, before returning to North Carolina and opening his first studio in Asheville.
(Image: Medal of Honor Recipient Lawrence Joel)
On November 8, 1965, Specialist/SFC Lawrence Joel of Winston-Salem, a Korean War veteran, began a routine patrol near Bien Hoa, Vietnam. Joel and his unit, the 1st Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry, were ambushed by a Viet Cong battalion that outnumbered them six to one.