Frank Porter Graham: A Southern Liberal
by Warren Ashby

Years of exhaustive research, interviews, writing and rewriting have produced the definitive work on one of the South's greatest men--Frank Porter Graham. This biography gives a brilliant and revealing portrait of a leading twentieth century liberal, a man who served as president of the University of North Carolina, as senator during the McCarthy era, and as a negotiator at the United Nations.

Frank Porter Graham was an idealist and dreamer, a man of great social vision, a Southern liberal, and a democrat in the truest sense of the word.

To understand Graham's idealism and devotion to democratic principles is in large measure to understand the man. He was a motivating force behind many of the important changes that took place in the South--and beyond--during the first half of the Twentieth Century. As president of the University of North Carolina, he consistently took liberal stands and led that university to a position of renown acknowledged throughout the world. In the thirties Time called Graham the ablest president of any state university in the nation.

While Graham was uncompromising on democratic ideals, he was neither obtuse nor single-minded. On the contrary, he was an accomplished mediator, a fact not lost on serveral presidents. Roosevelt appointed him to the Advisory Council on Economic Security and to the War Labor Board, and Truman called upon Graham to serve as a negotiator for the United Nations during the early years of that organization.

In a 1949 address fellow senator Wayne Morse called Graham "one of the twenty-five greatest living Americans." The very traits which inspired this tribute also made Graham's multi-faceted career an often stormy one. He was a Southern leader during a period when economic, racial, and educational problems made the South the nation's number one troubled spot. Yet his philosophy of "equal and exact justice to all" compelled him to take strong and highly visible stands on racial and social questions.

This refusal to bow to political expediency fwas to cost Graham dearly. As senator during the witch hunts of the McCarthy era, he was particularly vulnerable to attacks. His defeat in the 1950 Senate race is ample evidence of this vulnerability. Charges of "Communist" and "Negrophile" eventually took their toll.

While Graham may have been a victim of the McCarthy era, he was not a victim in any larger sense. During his long years of public service he established himself as a leading liberal and as a voice that had to be contended with. Through his personal crusades and courageous stands he left a legacy--a vision of a more noble America where social and economic justice prevails

WARREN ASHBY, PH.D. (1920-1985), a graduate of Yale University, headed both the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro during his career.