Future Farmers of America represented a new young progressive group in favor of the Sanford campaign
The Future Farmers of America was a training ground for future politicians at North Carolina State University, which forged a progressive cohort of young students. Terry Sanford's amenable view toward farmers and his focus on education won Hunt's allegiance, along with other young college students. Sanford's appeal helped usher in a new guard of politicians who utilized the youth vote.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with James B. Hunt, May 18, 2001. Interview C-0329. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACK FLEER:
-
You went on to North Carolina State University. It is said about your
class at North Carolina State that it might have been one of the most
talented, ambitious classes in the history of North Carolina State.
There are a number of people in that group, and I don't know
whether it was just your class or people during that period of time. Can
you talk about that group of people that you associated with?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
Well, they weren't all in the same class.
- JACK FLEER:
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No.
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
But we were within a couple of classes of each other. There was me, Tom
Gilmore in my class, Eddie Knox and Phil Carlton in the class right
after us. We were all together in student government. The truth is the
people that had come along in the FFA many of whom had sort of been my
proteges were the, became student government officers. In fact I think
Norris Tolson—. I think we had six student body presidents in
a row that had been active in FFA. Many of which
had been state presidents in FFA like I was. So there was a, I think
that was partly because farm boys at that time were more—.
Some of us were more politically aware, had been touched more by
politics and farm programs and efforts to provide opportunities in rural
North Carolina, had had more opportunities, the FFA, 4-H too, but FFA,
the finest youth leadership organization in America, was, still is I
expect. Nowhere else would you learn public speaking and parliamentary
procedure and have a chance to really practice it and become skilled at
it in the way that we did. That was an exceptional group of people that
were at NC State at that time. Many of us, all of us that I just
mentioned became very active in the Young Democrats and then got
involved in political campaigns later on. I worked actively for Terry
Sanford. I guess all those guys did, but six years, four years later
Eddie Knox was over there working for Dan K. Moore. Whereas Gilmore and
Phil Carlton and I worked actively for Richardson Preyer. We worked
generally together through our political times until Eddie split off
from me later on.
- JACK FLEER:
-
Yes, I read about that. Back to when you were at North Carolina State,
other than that group of close friends many of whom had been in the FFA
were there other developments or influences that came to bear on your
political thinking and your interest in politics that you could
mention?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would say in my political science courses,
particularly those I took under Abe Holtzman, I began to see the
difference in the parties. Remember these are the days when the
conservative party was dominated by the old guard, the Taft element. By
the way some of the Tafts are good now. I've got a good
friend named Taft in Ohio who I guess is Robert Taft's son,
grandson. So I became, I began to be sensitized to
or became sensitized to political issues generally. But I continued to
follow the farm economy and the farm programs. I was especially outraged
at the policies, the Republican policies under the Ezra Taft Bensons and
those people who tried to tear down the farm programs that had helped us
to have prosperity on the farms. By the way we haven't had
any since then hardly. I took a course in college
in—what's it called—something about
Stuart, no what was his name the guy that taught that course. But it was
a course in agriculture history about the ways of rack and ruin in the
agricultural economy throughout our history. Where people would
overproduce and prices would fall to disastrous levels, and it just
happened over and over and over again throughout, no stability, no
profit in it over time. Then of course I became very interested in
education. More and more aware of what I had lacked in my own education.
I was getting an undergraduate degree in education did my practice
teaching out here at Cary.
- JACK FLEER:
-
What was this, agricultural education?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
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Agricultural education, yes. And became more and more aware of how badly
we were doing in our public schools and how unfair it was and how
counterproductive it was for our economy. So when Terry Sanford came
along, I was ready for him. North Carolina was ready for him. I was
ready for him. I threw myself into his campaign wholeheartedly.
- JACK FLEER:
-
Now you had been a student government leader also at North Carolina
State. I think you had been student body president on two occasions.
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
Right. Right. Right.
- JACK FLEER:
-
Was this group that you were associated with and Abe Holtzman and these
people like Phil Carlton, Tom Gilmore and Norris Tolson and others were
these people beginning to develop an idea that
they could make a difference in North Carolina politically?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
I don't think we saw ourselves as running for office at that
time. I think we saw ourselves as being a part of a team that was making
a difference then and could make a difference in the future. My guess is
the first time we ever signed up in a campaign was in the campaign of
1960.
- JACK FLEER:
-
The Sanford campaign.
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
Yeah.
- JACK FLEER:
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All of them were in that group.
- JAMES B. HUNT:
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Yeah.
- JACK FLEER:
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No division at that time.
- JAMES B. HUNT:
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Yeah. Exactly right. Not much since.
- JACK FLEER:
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And not much since. Yes, I understand that.
- JAMES B. HUNT:
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There were others. You've got David Weinstein down here who
managed, co-managed my campaign for student government president. And a
number of others, if I had time I could go back and think of some
others. But anyhow we weren't thinking about running for
office, but we wanted to make a difference, and we were activists by
nature, and we had some leadership skills. So I guess we were kind of
coming along and getting ready even though we didn't know
what we were getting ready for.
- JACK FLEER:
-
But you were ready you said for Terry Sanford.
- JAMES B. HUNT:
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Right.
- JACK FLEER:
-
What was it about the Terry Sanford campaign and candidacy that appealed
to you?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
Well, he was a continuation of the Kerr Scott tradition of standing up
for the average man and being for jobs and opportunities, a general
progressive image and being willing to fight the old guard.
That's what we called it, the old guard. That's
what I couldn't think of a while ago. Second and most
important, he was for education. The way he was going to change the
state was to change the schools and give us a far better education.
Third, he was a young vigorous charismatic figure, political figure that
young people, modern kind of people I think could identify with and feel
strongly about and want to be involved in helping be a part of the
team.
- JACK FLEER:
-
What did you do in that campaign?
- JAMES B. HUNT:
-
In that campaign I was chairman of the Young Voters for Terry Sanford,
Young College Voters for Terry Sanford, I guess. I'm not sure
of the name we used. It was my job to organize the college campuses for
Terry Sanford. I recruited a number of people, two that I can mention to
you. One was Bill Wichard, now former Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, before that a state senator, before that member of the house and
now dean of the law school at Campbell University. He and one of his
colleagues led the Terry Sanford campaign at Chapel Hill. I went to the
campus and recruited them. I went to East Carolina and recruited the
student government president, Glenn Jernigan, former state senator and
others around the state. So I was working for Terry; we were working for
the schools. We were excited about a new wave, a new generation of
leaders. I guess John Kennedy called them a new generation of Americans.
But we were also developing a lot of new leaders. This was the first
time colleges had been organized for a political candidate. I was
getting to do it.