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Bob Sheldon's vision still lives on at his bookstore.
By Greg Barbara
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Bob Sheldon was killed 10 years ago this month, but his idea is turning 20. Sheldon founded the scrappy Internationalist Bookstore in 1981, quickly developing it as not only a place to pick up the latest progressive literature, but also as a hub of community activism and spirited debate. Friends who knew him way back when remember Sheldon as a human soapbox, a one-time registered nurse who drank ideas and ideologies and lived to discuss them. A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, he also breathed activism, working often uphill to turn several of his passions into realities, such as those that dealt with helping those who couldn't help themselves, in Chapel Hill and elsewhere around the globe. A motorcyclist with thick glasses, Sheldon is also generally remembered as a kind, gregarious, fun-loving person with an open ear to even those he vigorously disagreed with.
"I knew him just because I liked the ambiance of the store and you couldn't be in the store without knowing Bob," says Joe Straley, a former UNC-Chapel Hill professor who served on the Chapel Hill Town Council in the early 1980s. "He was an easy person to talk to. You couldn't help but talk to him casually or not so casually about the issues of the day."
The Internationalist opened on Henderson Street, a stone's throw from UNC, and eventually moved to West Rosemary Street. The new digs were nothing fancy, but Sheldon made it work, fighting the good fight for a bookstore that did not readily turn much of a profit. It was while closing up this unique contribution to Chapel Hill that Sheldon was murdered. A person or persons -- the murder remains unsolved -- walked into the Internationalist shortly before 9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 21, and shot him once in the head. He died the next day at UNC Hospitals, setting off a period of sustained grief among friends and Internationalist boosters that culminated in the bookstore being reopened a couple of months after the shooting as a nonprofit cooperative.
It moved to its present location on West Franklin Street in 1995, and relies annually on small financial donations from hundreds of residents. The day-to-day work is juggled by dozens of volunteers as well as a paid manager and a student intern or two from nearby UNC. Sheldon's imprint is unquestionably still felt at the Internationalist. The evidence is everywhere, from the bumper stickers for sale -- "Want My Vote: Cut Pentagon Bloat" -- to the magazine rack featuring mastheads like Mother Jones and The Progressive to the fliers, pamphlets and signs hawking various causes around town and beyond. Many an activist organization in these parts has found plenty of support from the Internationalist over the past two decades.
"I think he'd be happy to know that the community felt strongly enough about the store to keep it open," says Lisa Garmon.
Garmon started going to the Internationalist in the early 1980s because some of her professors at UNC carried textbooks there. She, like many before and after her, fell under Sheldon's infectious enthusiasm, and before long she was a volunteer. Garmon would seek out Sheldon when her fledgling activist batteries needed recharging.
"A lot of times I went to the store when I felt defeated... when it didn't seem like change was going to come," she says. "I remember one day, he said to me, 'Think how few [anti-slavery] abolitionists there were and look at where we're at now.' He was very enthusiastic, very inspiring."
His opposition to the Vietnam War sparked Sheldon's impassioned politics. While he probably would not have been drafted due to his poor eyesight, Sheldon, 40 when he died, nevertheless wanted the record to show that he had deep moral objections to the war.
"He knew he wanted to be a conscientious objector," says Lee Tatum, who was dating Sheldon at the time of his death. "He didn't just want a deferment. He wanted to have it on the record that he was a conscientious objector."
Sheldon's opposition to the Persian Gulf War was also public knowledge. A couple of months before his death, he even participated in protests in Washington against the coming conflict. Less than three days after he was shot, oddly enough, the American-led ground assault on Iraqi forces began. Considering how popular the war was in North Carolina, some believe his murder may have been politically motivated. Sheldon, by being such a vocal critic of the war as well as a very public proponent of liberal causes in general, was a natural lightening rod for contempt or worse from those who strenuously disagreed with him. Irate people would sometimes charge into the Internationalist and hurl insults at Sheldon. He shrugged them off mostly, preferring reasoned arguments to nasty insults.
Police looked into the murder for months, and friends organized rewards for information totaling several thousand dollars. Leads fizzled, however, and the police eventually stopped working on the investigation full-time. Still, the case remains open and active, according to Chapel Hill Police, and there is no statute of limitations for murder. Besides the possible political motive, the only other major theory batted around at the time was that Sheldon was the unfortunate victim of a robbery gone wrong.
"I felt the police did the best they could," says Jane Stein, who was helping Sheldon organize volunteer support for the Internationalist.
Whatever the motive for his murder, the 20-year anniversary of his creation gives his friends and admirers a chance to celebrate Sheldon's life.
"He had so many friends," Straley says. "That's a big part of his legacy."
Whitney Rutter is too young to have been friends with Sheldon. She grew up in Chapel Hill, however, admiring the Internationalist. A recent UNC graduate, Rutter was the first student intern there and she continues to volunteer.
"I always thought it was a very cool little place," Rutter says. "I really liked the store. I wanted to do something that was really rewarding. I wanted to get involved in the community, not just the campus. It's become much more of a community center in the past few years."
A former manager of the Internationalist, Heather Hunt remembers her friend as consistently concerned with the community.
"He was very good with tying what happened locally to larger issues," Hunt says. "He had an incredible concern for the community. Personally, he was incredibly vivacious, sort of an irrepressible personality."
Sheldon had definitely planned to keep the Internationalist a vibrant community force in the 1990s, according to Tatum, who met him in December of 1990 when she was a UNC grad student shopping for books. The impending Gulf War was also on his mind a lot, says Tatum, who spoke with him by phone minutes before he was killed. Sheldon was in a good mood during the conversation, buoyed by some last-minute peace prospects in the Middle East and looking forward to meeting a friend for drinks after he closed the Internationalist.
"What I initially liked about him, he really liked cats," says Tatum, now a foreign languages professor at UNC-Asheville. "He had two cats and he loved animals in general. For someone so political and knowledgeable and aware of how awful people could be to each other, he was a very compassionate person. He was a really nurturing kind of person. He would do anything for his friends. The impact Bob made on my life in six weeks was more than most people have had."
The Internationalist will hold its 20th anniversary celebration -- and its 10-year memorial for Bob Sheldon -- Feb. 26 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Panzanella restaurant on Weaver Street in Carrboro. The public is invited. For more information, call the bookstore at 942-1740 or click on www.internationalistbooks.com.
