Silent Sam and Me

In September of 1961, I left my job at a basket factory in Wilmington, North Carolina and hitch-hiked up to Chapel Hill to become a student there. I followed in the path of UNC’s very first student, a boy named Hinton James, who had famously walked those roads up from Pender County back in 1789. As befits the first student at the first State University, he did not come by carriage.

My last ride was in the cab of a well-weathered farm truck. The grizzled driver wished me well and let me out in...