The Free Men

This moving narrative by John Ehle describes the experiences of a handful of dedicated young students, both black and white, during the 1963-64 civil rights protests in Chapel Hill, NC. The movement began through the efforts of three young men: two white UNC-CHapel Hill students, John Dunne, a gifted Morehead Scholar, and Pat Cusick, the grandson of the founder of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, and one student from the all-black North Carolina College in Durham, Quinton Baker. First published in 1965 by Harper & Row, ‘The Free Men’ was controversial but won the Mayflower Award for Nonfiction. It is now back in print by Press 53 with a new Afterword by the former UNC-Chapel Hill student, ‘Daily Tar Heel’ editor, and Pulitzer Prize-Winning journalist Wayne King.

Author Biography

JOHN EHLE (Ee-lee, December 13, 1925 – March 24, 2018) was the author of eleven novels and six nonfiction books. He won numerous literary awards, including the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Thomas Wolfe Prize, the Lillian Smith Award for Southern Fiction, the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, which he earned five times-more than any other writer to date-and the Mayflower Award for Nonfiction. His books have been translated into French, German, Swedish, Czech, Hebrew, Spanish, and Japanese. Following service in World War II, Ehle earned his BA and MA at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He taught at the university for ten years before joining the staff of Governor Terry Sanford in 1962. He resigned from the governor’s staff in 1964 to write The Free Men, a nonfiction account of the civil rights movement that took place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, during 1963-64. Ehle later served on the White House Group for Domestic Affairs and was appointed to the First National Council of the Humanities. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Berea College, the North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of North Carolina-Asheville, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.John Ehle was married for fifty years to actress Rosemary Harris. The two divide their time between their homes in Winston-Salem and Penland, North Carolina, New York City, New York, and London, England. They have one daughter, actress Jennifer Ehle.