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Morganton: |
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Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. library and museum keep his leadership alive
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Situated in the Phifer Learning Resources Center at Western Piedmont Community College in Morganton, this unique library/museum includes an exact replica of Senator Sam’s home library. It provides scholars and students with a wide range of resource information about the life of Senator Ervin, the US constitution, political history and NC legal and general history.
More than 5,000 people, including several former governors and senators, came to dedicate the library and museum October 17, 1990. It’s been expanded once and another expansion is planned.
Artifacts include original political cartoons from the Watergate era when Ervin was most famous. Collections include 10,000 books dating from the 1870s, correspondence, photos and public and private documents, and the Dr. Jean Conyers Ervin Mark Twain Collection of 350 books.
Ervin was a major figure in the downfall of President Richard Nixon and Senator Joseph McCarthy. His Watergate committee gave Brother Ervin a venue for his grand mix of bravery, intellect, humor and good sense. Here is how Governor James G. Martin described him: “When the ominous clouds of Watergate loomed as the greatest internal political crisis faced by America since the War Between the States, the fairness, patience and calm he displayed as chairman of the Senate hearings restored the nation’s confidence in itself.”
As a strict constitutional constructionist, Ervin was the delight of liberals for supporting civil liberties and opposing no-knock search laws, data banks and lie-detector tests as invasions of privacy.
In 1966 he helped defeat a constitutional amendment that would have allowed prayer in public schools and appeared headed for enactment.
Brother Ervin was raised in Catawba Valley 217 in Morganton February 23, 1922. His lodge elected him life member in 1972. In the Scottish Rite he received the KCCH and Thirty-Third degree. In 1973 he received the Rite’s highest honor: the Grand Cross of the Court of Honor. He was a York Rite member, Royal and Select Masters and Red Cross of Constantine. DeMolay made him a member of its Honorary Legion of Honor. He was affiliated with Oasis, Sudan and Amran Shrine temples.
When Senator Sam attended the raising of his grandson to the Sublime Degree of Master Mason, he said, “Freemasonry is the greatest stabilizing force in America today.”
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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