Estate gift will establish King Family Peace Studies Lecture Series at the Libraries

The Libraries is pleased to announce the establishment of the King Family Peace Studies Lecture Series Endowment through an estate gift by Cyrus B. King, Jr. in recognition of the impacts that his parents Cyrus B. King, Sr. and Carolyn S. King, and his grandparents Edward S. King (who served as the Secretary of the NC State campus YMCA for four decades and for whom NC State’s E.S. King Village is named) and Eunice Baldwin King, have had on NC State University—and particularly on the Libraries.

The endowment will be used to fund a lecture series at the Libraries that brings speakers on peace-related topics such as contemporary social justice, pacifism, civil rights, civic and international events, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding, and provide a meaningful forum for discussion and debate of these topics. 

This commitment continues the King Family’s legacy at the Libraries, building upon the existing Cyrus King Endowment for Peace Studies established in 2006. That endowment has supported the NC State University Libraries Peace Studies Collection which is devoted to materials about peace, peacebuilding, history, conflict management, peace and antinuclear movements, and other peace-related works. 

The King Family Peace Studies Lecture Series Endowment will bring that collection to life through Libraries-hosted speakers on peace-related topics, spotlighting some of the foremost minds in conflict transformation and peacebuilding and engaging the campus in discourse and dialogue on peace research and activities. 

Cyrus Baldwin King (1922-2014)
Cyrus B. King, Sr. worked at the Libraries for over twenty years and was active in a wide variety of efforts to promote civil rights and social justice. He was hired as an acquisitions librarian in 1963 and retired in 1984 as Assistant Director for Collection Management and Development. King was very politically active, writing tirelessly in support of the causes that he adopted, most notably racial justice, campaigns to promote peace, non-violence, greater voting rights, economic justice, the abolishment of the death penalty, workers' rights, improving education, and other civil rights causes. Along with his late wife Carolyn, King was an undaunted force for good who made the world a better place. King was involved with a number of organizations in North Carolina, including the NC Stop Torture Movement, People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the Human Rights Coalition of NC, and the Wake Chapter of the ACLU. The Cyrus B. King Papers are preserved at the Libraries' Special Collections Research Center.

Carolyn S. King (1922-2012)
Carolyn S. King was a pioneering advocate for racial justice, teaching at an all African-American kindergarten class at Manley Street Christian Church in Raleigh. She participated in public demonstrations for equal rights and helped lead her church's involvement in a racially integrated Vacation Bible School that prompted the integration of the North Carolina State Parks system as their school searched for a meeting place. These efforts predated the landmark 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education decision that desegregated schools nationally. In 1965 Carolyn joined the faculty at Raleigh Preschool—at the time, the only parent cooperative in Raleigh—where she taught preschool children until her retirement in 1983. The recognitions of her service include induction into the Raleigh Hall of Fame in 2009, the North Carolina Council of Churches Citizenship Award in 2009, and the W.W. Finlator Award for Civil Liberties from the Wake County Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1991.

Edward S. King (1887-1962)
Edward S. King came to NC State in 1919 as secretary of the campus Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), which served as the campus social center as there was no student union yet. The YMCA held Christian religious services and Bible study classes, sponsored speakers and discussion groups, and offered a game room and barbershop. King brought liberal radical views and pacifism with his controversial leadership, sponsoring Black speakers and organizing interracial meetings at the United Church of Christ on Hillsborough Road. King was one of several southern YMCA secretaries who sought to promote better racial harmony during the 1920s. Despite resistance from campus administration, King was also outspoken in his opposition to mandatory ROTC. In 1959, in recognition of King's service, the YMCA Building became known as the King Religious Center (it stood where Kamphoefner Hall is today). After it was demolished in 1975, the university named King Village in his honor.