Oral history interview with Jonathan Worth Daniels, March 9-11, 1977

In this wonderfully candid interview, Jonathan Worth Daniels describes the political and social changes he witnessed from the early 1900s to the mid-1940s in North Carolina. Daniels was born into two prominent political North Carolinian families--the Bagleys and the Daniels--in 1902. Daniels' parents modeled paternalistic behavior in their dealings with the family's black servants. He recalls that race relations were pleasant, but notes that blacks were subservient to whites. Daniels' father, Josephus, actively participated in the 1898 white supremacy campaign by using his newspaper, the News and Observer, to disseminate Democratic and anti-black rhetoric. Josephus' opposition to black political power grew out of Reconstruction-era politics. Although his father provided significant political help with the white supremacist campaign in the late 1890s, Daniels remembers his father as helpful to black workers privately. When his father moved to Washington, D.C., as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, Daniels' own relationship with blacks changed: when he was a young child, blacks were his playmates, but during his adolescence, his social relationships with blacks came to an end. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill profoundly shaped Daniels' personal and professional life. As editor of college's newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, Daniels gained practical experience for his future career as an editor for the Raleigh News and Observer. His participation in the Carolina Playmakers theatre group enhanced his creative flair. After college, Daniels worked at a Louisville, Kentucky, paper under his uncle Colonel Stover's tutelage. By the early 1930s, Daniels had written his first novel and moved to New York City to attend Columbia Law School. Harry Luce hired him to work with Fortune magazine. He later returned to Raleigh to serve as the editor of the Raleigh News and Observer. Daniels argues that racial views must be seen in the light of one's era. He also explains that the characteristics of effective leaders are largely decisiveness and action.