Blog Entry List
On December 19, 1777, the Continental Army, including the North Carolina Brigade, entered the winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.Among the North Carolinians present at the Pennsylvania camp was 19-year-old, Major Willam Polk. Polk spent much of the harsh winter recuperating. He had been shot through the mouth while shouting orders at Germantown that October—the ball that hit him knocked out his teeth and shattered his jaw.
On December 13, 1986, Ella Baker, civil rights leader and organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), died. Called “the mother of the civil rights movement” by one scholar, Baker culminated a life dedicated to civil rights work by helping to establish SNCC at her alma mater, Shaw University, in April 1960.