News Release

By DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Almost 40 years ago, more than 3,000 like-minded University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students gathered at the edge of campus along Franklin Street and displayed strong emotions.

Their rally had nothing to do with basketball.

Although few of the students cared anything about communism, they came together to hear the views of American communists Herbert Aptheker and Frank Wilkinson.

But what really brought them out that day was an egregious violation of civil liberties guaranteed to them and all other Americans under the U.S. Constitution. State politicians had decided that they couldn’t invite communists to discuss ideas on campus.

That violation, which took the form of the N.C. "Speaker Ban Law," is now the subject of a new documentary film titled "Beyond the Wall" by Gorham "Hap" Kindem, professor of communication studies in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences.

"My documentary explores some important parallels between infringements upon our civil liberties during the 1960s and today," Kindem said. "Specifically, it documents how student activists at Carolina overturned North Carolina’s anti-communist speaker ban law, which was on the books from 1963 to 1968.

"The students heard these two men speak across a wall separating the town of Chapel Hill from the University in 1966," he said. "Following up on a suggestion by law professor Daniel Pollitt, they were testing the law, which was eventually found unconstitutional in federal court after students brought suit against the University and the State of North Carolina."

Kindem and some of the people interviewed in his film compare anti-communist constraints upon civil liberties decades ago with recent anti-terrorist actions such as the USA Patriot Act. Music is by Lenny Kravitz, local composer and musician Glenn Morrissette and Bob Dylan, whose invitation to perform at UNC was apparently rescinded during the speaker ban.

"Beyond the Wall" will be screened Saturday, April 23 at 10 a.m. in the Babcock Theater at the N.C. School of the Arts in Winston-Salem during the RiverRun International Film Festival. It will be shown again the following day at 11:30 a.m. in the main theater at the N.C. School of the Arts.

A screening of Francesca Talenti’s animated short "A Brief History of Voting" will precede both showings of Kindem’s film. Talenti is assistant professor of communication studies at UNC.

Kindem’s work already aired at the Freedom Cinema Festival, which ran concurrently with the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah in January. Another screening is planned for 6:30 p.m. Friday, May 20 sponsored by the Peace and Justice Committee in the Community Church in Chapel Hill to be followed by a panel discussion of the speaker ban and the USA Patriot Act.

Support for the documentary came from a UNC Arts and Humanities Fellowship and an award from the University Research Council.

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Note: Kindem can be reached at (919) 962-4960.

News Services contact: David Williamson, 962-8596