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Case

James Cates

Overview

On November 20, 1970, James Cates, a young Black man who grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, attended an all-night dance on the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (“UNC”) campus. The dance, organized by a UNC student organization to improve race relations, was instead the scene of a racially motivated fight in which Cates was murdered and multiple other Black men were injured.


Case Open Date
Incident Date
Case Name
James Cates
Topics
FOIA
Case Document
Updated July 28, 2025