Inquisition – Charlotte, NC

Inquisition was published between 1968 and 1969 in Charlotte, North Carolina by editors Lee Douglas, Hanson Dunbar, Lynwood Sawyer, Russell Schwarz, and Tom Wilkinson, who were all members of East Mecklenburg High School’s graduating class of 1969. They began publishing during their junior year with artistic and literary contributions from other students and the broader community. The origins of the literary magazine are encased in a mythical creation story and colored by the passage of time and memory, but seem best explained as a confluence of people and circumstances. Allan Cohen, a founder for the more renowned San Francisco Oracle, in explaining the origins for that publication stated, “[it] was not planned, it was discovered” (qtd. in Glessing 39). His words are appropriate for many underground press publications, and certainly true for Inquisition.

The editors, well-educated and at the top of their class, were by their own definition progressive thinkers. Members of the East Mecklenburg High School’s literary magazine staff, called Eyrie, many were also burgeoning essayists and poets interested in expressing a growing discontent with the establishment’s traditional views on everything from Vietnam policies to sexuality to hair length. The flames of discontent were fanned by two school-related issues of censorship. The literary magazine had long sponsored an essay contest in which each English class would vote for its best student work which would then be given to Eyrie for publication. In 1968 a senior student, Trena Morris wrote a piece, titled “Discovery”, with vaguely sexual imagery of lying in bed with a young man, that was chosen by her class. Another winning piece from junior and future editor Wilkinson was a short piece, “My 1^st Love,” a playful, innuendo-charged piece humorously revealed in the final sentence to be about a teddy bear. Both pieces were refused publication by the faculty and administration involved with Eyrie for the suggestive content. These instances of censorship helped to create dissatisfaction and a feeling of stifled self-expression among the young men, who then sought to create a new avenue for their creativity and commentary.

Also helping push the young men toward self-publication was the campaign to elect a progressive student leader, Tony Gallagher, for student body president. In the third issue of Inquisition, the editors printed an open letter to their readers, explaining the role of the campaign as taking “an unorganized crew of ‘liberals’” who had “achieved a unity, a unity which should not be wasted” and that had the effect of growing each student’s “individual interest in working for a personal belief” (“Inquisition”). High school student creation of underground press often began in this way. According
to Glessing, “Many of the campus underground sheets surface around election time when the authorized press often doesn’t want or is not permitted the privilege of endorsing candidates for student government posts” (131-2). Inspiration from political involvement continued and matured in the form of the editors’ involvement with the Eugene McCarthy presidential campaign of 1968, in particular Schwarz, who travelled for the campaign to Jeffersonville, Indiana. Others also were involved in a peripheral capacity with the Nelson Rockefeller primary run in 1968 through the transportation of members of the press corps covering the campaign. This participation further bonded the young men and solidified their developing values system, which advocated for maximum personal freedom, peace, and racial equality.

Another piece of the origins puzzle was the injection into this atmosphere of dissatisfaction and unity of a souvenir copy of an underground newspaper from Douglas’s travels in the northeast with his family. The publication was Avatar, a Boston-based underground newspaper that was founded in June of 1967. By the time the Inquisition staff was introduced to it, Avatar was agreed upon to be “graphically one of the most sophisticated of the underground newspapers” and “experimental, innovative, and highly creative,” with a circulation of around 40,000 (Glessing 29-30, 124).  This tangible object provided the final catalyst for the editors, the spark that imbued life into the swirl of ingredients needed for producing an underground publication.

The puzzle was completed after the young men obtained an offset Multilith duplicator from a local church that previously used it to produce church bulletins, but had recently replaced it with newer technology and so donated it to the young men. A tool shed, affectionately called “The Shack,” located in Schwarz’s backyard at 716 Bertonley Avenue, became the home for the duplicator and epicenter of Inquisition’s composition, publication, and distribution. The first issue had 82 copies, a feat considering that the tedious and time-consuming nature of hand-feeding the sheets through the duplicator. Presumably following the model of Avatar, the editors quickly sold out the first run at the cost of twenty-five cents apiece. At the height of circulation, its editors self-published and distributed two thousand copies per issue, the sheer logistical feat of which becomes increasingly impressive when looking at the later, more developed issues that featured up to three colors per page – each color application representing an additional page feed through the duplicator. A conservative estimate for one such issue is 78,000 single feeds. Inquisition editors and contributors produced nine issues over the course of a year and a half that provided, what was in their eyes and the eyes of their young readers, a legitimate outlet for a valid point of view otherwise ignored, dismissed, and oppressed.

While the production of the magazine-style publication is impressive, perhaps more so is the production in the face of serious opposition. The first such publication in Charlotte areaS, the text reinforced and reflected the counterculture ideals of the contributors, ideals including peace, maximum personal freedom, and equality. One reporter explained, “Inquisition grew out of boredom and dissatisfaction with student elections at East High last spring, and it has blossomed into one of Charlotte’s few – if now only – concrete examples of [what] ‘liberal’ (their own term) high school students are thinking” (Reimler, “Underground: Five Teenagers” 1B). In the South this liberalism was perceived as a threat to the innocence of the youth and the overall safety of the community. Inquisition slowly trickled onto the radars of the school administrators and city officials, but soon ignited a confrontation between the two forces. The editors were first noticed by the authorities when they attempted to sell copies at Freedom Park, the local so-called hippie hang out, and were promptly informed that peddling printed material without the proper licenses was forbidden. The undeterred editors sought the proper legal channels and found themselves in the office of the assistant county tax collector, Fred Griffith, to pay the appropriate taxes on the magazine’s sales and to acquire the distributor’s license needed to sell it. In what would later prove to be a controversial decision, Griffith required the editors to procure approval from the police department for the magazine’s content before the license would be issued. Douglas and Wilkinson took Inquisition to Police Major Sam Harkey, who “asked them if there were ‘any dirty pictures or if they were planning and dirty literature, in the magazine.’ Then he and a Major Crenshaw discussed the magazine…and ‘seemed to think it was a little bit weird, but they approved it’” (Taylor, “Inquisition Zone” 1C). The license was then issued, creating a legitimate business out of the publication.

The first six issued were produced under these circumstances with limited awareness by the community. Schwarz recounted, “Some lady walks up to me and says are you connected with this and when I told her yes she said there ought to be a law against you people. Other people come up and say get a haircut, hippie. I’ve been thrown out of Roses [local department store] 15 times” (Schwarz qtd. in Reimler, “Underground: Five Teenagers” 22B). Other adults accused the boys of being a ‘Communist plot’” (Reimler, “Underground: Five Teenagers” 22B). Yet these instances were few, and the publication was kept primarily underground by the young readers who kept it hidden from Establishment authority figures. The peace was shattered, however, on Saturday, March 1, 1969 when a local reporter, Kay Reimler, featured Inquisition in a story for the evening edition of the city mainstream newspaper, Charlotte News. She began her story, “Definition: Inquisition – An underground magazine with psychedelic swirls around acid poetry; mystic illusions biting satire; a plea for peace, student power, and a hard-rock radio station in Charlotte. Its messages: Boycott grapes, apologize to free the Pueblo last fall, end the war in Vietnam” (Reimler, “Underground: Five Teenagers” 1B). The story discussed the controversial content stating, “So far no one in the school administration has attempted to crack down on them” and quoted Dunbar as having said, “Mr. Pittman [East High principal] kind of ignores it and that’s really something.” To that statement, Douglas replied, “If he did something about it…that would give him five full-time radicals on his hands” (Reimler, “Underground: Five Teenagers” 1B).

Whether it was the allusion to acid or threat of student radicalization, on the Monday following the Reimler feature, she wrote a follow up piece outlining the actions taken against the magazine by the school. An announcement was made at the high school over the public address system, calling all students in possession of Inquisition to report to the cafeteria. Principal D.K. Pittman  proceeded to tell some of the 16 students who gathered that they needed haircuts, before dismissing all but those responsible for the publication who were told that anyone selling the magazine on school property would be suspended from school (Reimler, “East’s Underground” 1B, 16B). Pittman admitted that even though he was “not acquainted with [the magazine’s contents]” and that he recognized that “these people have a right to publish it,” the sale of the magazine on school grounds was against pre-existing school policy (Reimler, “East’s Underground” B1).  The action to effectively ban Inquisition resulted in further dividing the administration from the students and framed their work as an issue of free speech, exemplified by a letter to the editor published in Charlotte News from a student later in the week who wrote, “My feelings are mixed about the magazine, but I don’t see any reason for curtailing the sale of it. The editors are doing something constructive and I feel they should be encouraged instead of put down…I hope you will have the intestinal fortitude to print this letter because there are many more people who feel the same way about infringement on students’ rights. Good luck, editors” (South Senior 1B). The issue grew into a question of protected constitutional rights, and Douglas’s threat to radicalize was carried out in the form of an organized appeal of Pittman’s decision to the school board on March 19, 1969.

The editors argued that the sale of the publication should be allowed on school property on the grounds that “by our efforts we are producing a magazine of considerable educational value” (qtd. in Maulden 1B). During the school board meeting, one board member, Betsey Kelly, expressed her support. “I’m willing to take a chance on this endeavor. We put a lot of stock in teaching our youth how to think and when they do, we’re shocked. These boys aren’t stating positions. They’re raising constitutional questions…They’re using a lot of satire and attacking the hypocrisy of our generation” (qtd. in Reimler, “‘Establishment’ Ruffled” 1B, 3B). Dr. John O.P. Hall, University of North Carolina Charlotte history professor, supported the editors’ appeal in person and afterward suggested that the school board members were “scared of open discussion from people they wish would sit down and shut up. They do not want people who ask questions. This is generally true of this generation. They’re scared of their own kids [who realize] this is a free country where you inquire and don’t take anything for granted” (qtd. in Reimler, “Inquisition Stays” 4C). It was this fear that ultimately drove the school board’s seven-to-two defeat of the appeal, and was pervasive in the community following the well-attended school board meeting.

School board members Henderson Belk and Julia Maulden expressed concern about the content of the magazine. Belk inferred that “an ‘Inquisition’ article which questioned the law against marijuana advocated marijuana smoking” (Robbins 2D). Maulden defended her decision in an editorial, explaining, “I… proceeded to question the educational value to other students of a publication which by inference if not by direct statement condoned drug addiction, flop houses as legitimate gathering places for young people – whether inhabiting or cohabiting – ridicule of police, advocating of violence, and incantations to the devil as to a deity” (1B). She also expressed the commonly held belief that the magazine could have potentially damaging influential effects on otherwise well-behaved young people. She wrote:

It is precisely because not only these young ‘Inquisition’ authors but thousands of other young people ‘are products of the local schools whose direction board members control’ that the board had to state its clear opposition to the direction in which ‘Inquisition’ leads. We are bound by law and by conscience to promote those educational offerings that cultivate the highest and not the basest instincts with which nature equips us all. (1B)

The chairman of the school board, William Poe, provided the strongest condemnation of the publication and its creators and supporters. To the editors, he remarked, “Until you seek the guidance from a generation capable of guiding, you’re not going to get my vote of approval” (qtd. in “The Inquisition of the ‘Inquisition’”). And to the UNC-Charlotte professors he challenged, “If you folks at the university think it’s all right, then I’m sorry. It shocks me to know that people from the university would come here to approve this publication. I hope I can do something to get it out of your bookstore” (Poe qtd. in Reimler, “‘Establishment’ Ruffled” 1B). Ultimately, Inquisition remained on the UNC-Charlotte bookstore shelves, but these exchanges fueled the community debate and filled the pages of Charlotte newspapers’ editorial sections and airwaves for weeks.

Local radio station WBTV broadcast an editorial on March 28 and 30, 1969 registering the journalists’ dismay with the school board, arguing, “This station doesn’t recommend ‘Inquisition’ to anyone except as an example of what certain young people are thinking today. For that reason alone it has value. You can disagree with every thought it contains but that gives no reason to suppress it. As Thomas Jefferson said long ago: ‘Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe’” (“The Inquisition of the ‘Inquisition’”). One resident in reaction to the decision editorialized, “This area remains a nest of low-brow, middle-class Babbitry and fundamentalist, redneck dumbness” (Trotter 2B). Reprints in the Charlotte papers of articles from outside the region provide evidence of the publication’s influence reaching beyond the city limits. Originally appearing in The Greensboro Daily News, an editorial reprinted in The Charlotte Observer argued, “[The school board] did not prohibit sale of the teenage experimental magazine because of the soundness of the anti-peddling policy. They left the clear impression that they said no because they disagreed with its contents… The breadth of the generation gap has rarely been more clearly illustrated” (“Board Dramatizes” 2B). While support for Inquisition was expressed by some, the residents of the city of Charlotte generally perceived those involved with the magazine with fear as corrupting and dangerous influencers of other vulnerable youths.

One resident echoed Maulden’s concerns stating, “The board cannot endorse the sale of this magazine, against its policy, without endorsing its content, and very powerfully, to very immature readers…By and large, the magazine is a powerful and unified piece of propaganda in favor of the package deal known as ‘head’ philosophy… ‘Inquisition’ is not a teacher whom [the school board] can put into our high schools with their backing” (Cumming 2B). One editorial, written by a mother not wishing to disclose her name, railed, “Who’s afraid of ‘Inquisition’? I am – that’s who! I have a son, a very impressionable 14-year-old who soaks up like a blotter the attitudes and opinions of this underground newspaper… drug addiction, hippie hangouts and hang-ups, law, order and authority…I am afraid of “Inquisition’ because…it is one small example…of many other, possibly more dangerous influences on our young people today” (“Mother’s Afraid” 2B). Another expressed concern that, “Several of the articles in the magazine freely discussed student use of drugs such as marijuana and LSD” (Cody 1B). Reverend Paul Leonard, operating on information supplied by such residents, cited the problems of  “the increased use of narcotics and the maintenance of order and discipline [among] the hippie types, the youth represented by ‘The Inquisition,’ the activist high school students organizing the Charlotte Student Union, and the dropouts” as sufficient cause for his proposal that the city establish a youth office dedicated to solving these problems through outreach and communication (“Youth Office” 5A). It is fair to say that the youth in this time were often treated as alien entities, misunderstood and feared – as suggested by Hall earlier, but this is especially true for the editors of Inquisition. Leonard and the other editorial authors represent a common view that the
editors could be equated with dropouts, drug users, and disruptors of order and maintenance when in reality they represented well-educated, well-read, politically literate students at the top of their class, yet this mischaracterization persisted in the community and contributed to the atmosphere that sought to quash their efforts.

The pervasive fearful atmosphere culminated in actions against the publication leading to a historically significant legal case involving First Amendment rights. On March 24, 1969, assistant zoning inspector, Thomas C. Birmingham visited the Bertonley Avenue tool shed and told the editors that they were in violation of city policy prohibiting the running of a business in a residential zone. Birmingham went further to state that if publication did not cease immediately then criminal charges would be brought against them (Taylor, “Embattled” 20C). Regarding the deliverance of the verbal unofficial cease and desist order given to Inquisition, Chief Inspector Long explained that along with the general violation of running a business from an R-9, single-family residential zone “the underground magazine was also violating residential zoning requirements forbidding use of an accessory building for a home occupation, forbidding special mechanical equipment for commercial purposes at a residence, and restricting workers in a home occupation to family members” (Roehrs 1B). The official rationale for the sudden enforcement of zoning laws was explained by William H. Jamison, head of the Building Inspection Department. He said, “The issue came up when ‘somebody’ called his office asking if it would be legal to begin printing another ‘underground’ paper in the area. When told no, he asked how the Inquisition was able to do it. That’s when building inspector T.C. Birmingham visited Schwarz” (Reimler, “Business” 5A). However, some suggest that coming on the heels of the school board confrontation, the impetus for action could be traced directly to Chairman Poe’s desire to punish the editors’ challenge of his authority (Daly).

This led to a pair of lawsuits filed on March 27, 1969 on behalf of the editors by ACLU lawyer George Daly. The editors were familiar with Daly through their having covered the local news story referred to as the case of the hippie house. The house at 216 E. Kingston Street was a local gathering point for young people that had been the center of numerous interactions with the police – some turning violent and resulting in eighteen arrests. Daly represented the youth on the grounds that the anti-vagrancy laws at the heart of the arrests were unconstitutional, the charges were eventually dropped and the state laws concerning vagrancy eventually overturned as a result of Daly’s efforts. The legal powerhouse agreed to work with the Inquisition editors. The first suit he filed was against The City of Charlotte, City Manager William J. Veeder, chief zoning inspector Dale W. Long and assistant inspector Birmingham, contending that when the editors were instructed to cease publication in the tool shed they were denied due process of law. The second suit he filed was filed against Charlotte, Veeder, Fred Griffith, assistant tax collector, and the city tax collection office, along with Police Chief Sam C. Goodman Jr. and Police Major Sam Harkey stemming from Griffith’s requirement that the magazine obtain approval from the police department before a tax license would be issued. The suit argued this illegal requirement restricted first amendment right to a free press and constituted prior restraint of speech (Taylor, “Embattled” 20C). The judge assigned to the case was Superior Court Judge Sam J. Ervin III, one time editor of the Davidson College student newspaper. An interesting connection is that Judge Ervin’s father, North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, was a staunch ally of the civil rights movement and later became nationally recognizable as the face of the 1972 investigation of the Nixon Watergate scandal. After hearing Daly’s initial claims, Judge Ervin promptly granted a restraining order against the city zoning board, protecting Inquisition until the case could be heard in court and temporarily allowing the press to continue operation (Jetton 1B).

In the interim, the actions of the zoning board prompted new rounds of heated editorial exchanges among Charlotteans. Many wondered what “businesses” would be targeted next – music teachers giving lessons from inside their homes, lemonade stands, milkmen. However, the tone grew more serious when after the trial’s first day on April 10, 1969, lawyers on both sides of the case said they could find no previous decisions dealing with zoning in regard to First Amendment rights. One reporter wrote, “When [Judge Sam J. Ervin III] makes that decision [whether suppression of Inquisition would be worse than bending the zoning laws to permit its publication], it will likely be a first” (Taylor, “‘Inquisition’ Case” 20B).  Inquisition’s case brought constitutional rights into direct conflict with zoning ordinances for the first time in national history. In the absence of legal precedent, Judge Ervin postponed the trial and requested the preparation of briefs by Daly and the city’s attorney Fred Aycock. The briefs were presented on April 21, 1969. Daly’s brief on censorship called the police approval process the youths underwent a form of prior censorship and cited cases dating 400 years ago to Blackstone, the famous English jurist, who ruled against prior restraint of speech. Daly stated the use of zoning laws as grounds for ceasing publication was “overbroad in its application…and thereby unduly restrictive of First Amendment rights” (Taylor, “‘Inquisition’ Case” 20B).

This argument was founded in the zoning law’s intention – keeping the disruptive noise and traffic of a business out of residential neighborhoods. Inquisition was neither a source of noise pollution, nor a draw for much vehicular traffic, the two things that the ordinance aimed to eliminate. By his own admission, Daly enjoyed trying cases in court and was fully aware of the effectiveness of, and had a particular fondness for, staged theatrics in making a convincing argument (Daly). To illustrate the point that the ordinance was being used to censor the magazine’s content and not for its true application of eliminating unpleasant noise in a neighborhood, Daly arranged to have a lawnmower brought into the courtroom alongside the duplicator used to print the issues. After having Wilkinson demonstrate the machine’s use, he then asked Wilkinson to start the lawnmower to compare the noise levels of the duplicator and the common neighborhood landscaping machine. Before Wilkinson could crank the lawnmower, the judge stopped him saying, “Son, you’ve made your point,” and Prosecutor Aycock stipulated the duplicator was not a significant source of noise pollution (Wilkinson).

The trial ended and on May 12, 1969, after reviewing the briefs, Judge Ervin ruled that “[Inquisition] is an exercise of the Constitutional rights of free press and free speech. If a conflict exists in this case, zoning must yield. First Amendment rights are paramount. There is no legitimate goal set forth [in the ordinance] that is violated by the presence of the magazine. A violation, if it existed, would be minimal in every sense of the word. [The editors were] exercising their right to dissent in a clearly legitimate avenue” (qtd. in Taylor, “Judge Gives” 1A, 4A). Securing the judgment allowed Inquisition to continue to publish unimpeded by city officials. Three more issues were printed before the editors sold the rights to the name to Marvin Sparrow, a local poet and activist, who changed from the magazine format to a traditional newspaper printing. The editors went on to college and pursued various careers, an inevitable outcome for young, well-educated men upon completion of high school and seeking the 1-S draft deferment for college students. Ironically, had the city officials not taken action against Inquisition, the problem as they saw it would have eventually run its course and ceased publication, as is characteristic for the underground press. Through their own actions, the city accomplished the exact opposite of its goal – it gave more publicity, leading to more popularity, to the editors’ work, and the notoriety of the case led to even greater consequences.

Over the course of the two and a half months from the first mention of Inquisition in the local paper to the judge’s ruling, over fifty articles and editorial were published, taking up the pages alongside articles about the impending moon walk and debate on the desegregation of schools. The case hooked into the growing movement among the youth in the country and the escalating fear among the older generations in power. It brought forth important discussions about the role of the press in a democratic society and the importance of protecting those freedoms, and the discussion reached beyond the city limits. A reprint from The Winston-Salem Journal of an editorial is further evidence for the regional impact. It stated:

The City of Charlotte and the N.C. Civil Liberties Union have squared off in a legal dispute involving freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to dissent and the city’s residential zoning ordinance…So far as we know, the editors of Inquisition have done nothing to merit all the attention they have been getting from the City of Charlotte…My, how a few unconventional opinions can make the righteous squirm. (“Really, Now” 2C)

And the attention reached audiences even wider still. Inquisition became a member of both the Underground Press Syndicate and Liberation News Service, national networks of underground press publications designed to help disseminate information and serve as a shared resource for content, much like the overground Associated Press. Through the involvement with UPS and LNS, the editors were issued press passes and granted entry into many political and cultural points of significance, including access to and interviews with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin – among the last published for each – and press invitations to the Atlanta Pop Festival and Woodstock.

The ruling on behalf of The Inquisition was a turning point in the literary history of the underground press movement in the Southeast. The constitutionality of the right to print, even that which is subversive and unpopular, having been upheld against a disapproving government, influenced the underground press movement by creating an atmosphere of protection and permissiveness for literary and journalistic experimentation. This led to an increase in the number of Southern small press and underground publications in the years following. Some of the titles that emerged are The Road, Pyramid, Mandrake, Irregardless, The First Amendment, Droppings, Charlotte Focus, Notwithstanding, and The Greensboro Sun. Without The Inquisition and the historic constitutional case to pave the way, there would not have been such a colorful regional tradition of underground publications.

Works Cited

“Board Dramatizes Generation Gap.” The Charlotte Observer reprinted from The Greensboro  Daily News 21 Mar 1969: 2B. Print.

Cumming, Elizabeth C.. “Support School Board’s Devotion.” The Charlotte Observer 4 Apr  1969: 2B. Print.

Daly, George. Personal Interview. 31 July 2010.

Glessing, Robert J..  The Underground Press in America.  Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,  1984. Print.

Jetton, Susan. “Restraining Order Revives Inquisition.” The Charlotte Observer 28 Mar 1969: 1B, 4B. Print.

“Inquisition.”   Inquisition 1.3 (1968): 3. Print.

“The Inquisition of the ‘Inquisition’.” Editorial. WBT/WBTV, Charlotte, 28 Mar 1969. Radio.

Maulden, Julia. “‘Inquisition’ Editorial ‘Absurd’.” The Charlotte Observer 26 Mar 1969: 1B.  Print.

“Mother’s Afraid of ‘Inquisition’.” The Charlotte Observer 09 Apr 1969: 2B. Print.

“Really, Now, Charlotte…” The Charlotte Observer reprinted from The Winston-Salem Journal   22 Apr 1969: 2C. Print

Reimler, Kay. “Business Problems: Inquisition Editors Just Want ‘Peace’.” The Charlotte News    25 Mar 1969: 5A. Print.

Reimler, Kay. “East’s Underground Staff Faces Suspension Threat.” The Charlotte News 03 Mar 1969: 1B, 16B. Print.

Reimler. Kay. “‘Establishment’ Ruffled: ‘Inquisition’ Turned Down.” The Charlotte News 19 Mar 1969: 1B, 3B. Print.

Reimler, Kay. “Inquisition Stays on UNC-C Shelves.” The Charlotte News 20 Mar 1969: 4C. Print.

Reimler, Kay. “Underground: Five Teenagers Edit Way-Out Magazine.” The Charlotte News 01   Mar 1969: 1B, 22B. Print.

Robbins, John B.. “‘Inquisition’ Ban Befogs the Issue.” The Charlotte Observer 25 Mar 1969: 2D. Print.

Roehrs, Jane. “How About Lemonade Stand Sales? Enforced Zoning Laws Could Hit Art Teacher.” The Charlotte News 02 Apr 1969: 1B. Print.

South Senior. “Agains [sic] Ban of ‘Inquisition’”. The Charlotte News 08 Mar 1969: 1B. Print.

Taylor, Nick. “Embattled ‘Inquisition’ Gets Timely Assist from Judge.” The Charlotte News 28 Mar 1969: 20C. Print.

Taylor, Nick. “Judge Gives Ruling: ‘Inquisition’ Press Can Start Rolling.” The Charlotte News  12 May 1969: 1A, 4A. Print

Taylor, Nick. “‘Inquisition’ Case Lacks Precedents: Historic Ruling Ahead?.” The Charlotte News 21 Apr 1969: 20B. Print.

Taylor, Nick. “Inquisition Zone OK, Youths Told: Editors Testify at Hearing.” The Charlotte  News 11 Apr 1969: 1C. Print.

Trotter, William. “School Board – ‘Entrenched Foolishness’.” The Charlotte Observer 24 Mar 1969: 2B. Print.

Wilkinson, Tom. Personal Interview. 07 October 2010.

“Youth Office is Proposed by Leonard.” The Charlotte News 10 Apr 1969: 5A. Print.