North Carolina
Meet the New Jersey woman who was pivotal to North Carolina sit-ins during the Civil Rights Movement
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The sit-ins of the South became a pivotal part of civil rights history, and in 1960, a North Carolina college student from the Philadelphia area took a stand by being one of the first to sit down at a whites-only lunch counter.
Nancy Kirby’s story begins in Haddonfield, New Jersey, where she grew up and graduated from high school at age 16. She was planning to stay local for college by attending the University of Pennsylvania or Temple University – two schools Kirby said offered her full scholarships. Her mother, however, insisted she go away and attend an HBCU.
“She wanted me to have an experience where I was not in the minority,” Kirby said.
Kirby decided on Bennett College, a historically Black college for women in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was her first time in the segregated South, and when she arrived there in the late 1950s, the Civil Rights Movement was starting to catch on.
Kirby said her mother warned her against participating in the movement, fearing it would jeopardize her ability to graduate.
The sit-in demonstrations were a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement when Black people sat down at whites-only lunch counters. The first to do it are known as the “Greensboro Four,” four North Carolina Agriculture and Technical State University students who took a stand by sitting down at the Woolworth lunch counter. They sparked an evolution, and their story has been told by many over the last 60 years. There’s even a statue of the four men on North Carolina A&T’s campus, but it turns out there’s more to the story.
Decades after the sit-ins, Linda Beatrice Brown wrote a book titled “Belles of Liberty” to set the record straight.
“They didn’t come up with this idea by themselves at all, and I got tired of hearing that story be told the wrong way. The Bennett women deserve a whole lot more credit than they get,” said Brown, a Bennett alum who knows firsthand about the planning and organizing that happened before that first sit-in on Feb. 1, 1960.
“This was not just true of Greensboro, but true of the whole Civil Rights Movement: Women didn’t get the credit they should have in terms of being the movers and shakers of this movement,” Brown said.
At 20 years old and 450 miles from home, Kirby was one of those movers and shakers.
“My mother called again and said ‘do not get involved in that.’ By this time, I had already been arrested,” Kirby said.
Despite her participation in the sit-ins, Kirby graduated from Bennett College in 1960. With the exception of those four years in college, Nancy Kirby has lived in the Philadelphia area her whole life. She spent the majority of her career working at Bryn Mawr College.
Only in recent years have she and other women been recognized for their role in the movement that changed the course of history.
SHELBY, N.C. — A former North Carolina police officer caught on a doorbell camera repeatedly punching a woman in the face was charged Monday with assault.
The video of Shelby Officer Karson Hyder pummeling Cherrie Moore on Friday has circulated widely on social media.
Hyder, 22, turned himself in to the Cleveland County Detention Center Monday morning and was released on a $10,000 secured bond. Court records do not list an attorney for him, and a phone number associated with his name was out of service.
Hyder, who was suspended Friday and fired on Saturday, was responding to a breaking-and-entering call when the scuffle ensued.
According to a warrant, Moore, 34, fled the residence on foot and resisted arrest, assaulting Hyder by “grabbing and ripping (his) uniform.”
A separate warrant filed Monday alleged Hyder “unlawfully and willfully did assault and strike Cherrie Moore” by grabbing Moore “by the arm, pushing her to the ground and striking her in the face with a closed fist, thereby inflicting serious injury possible broken nose and busted lip.”
The State Bureau of Investigation had announced Saturday it had opened an investigation into Hyder.
Moore was initially charged with breaking and entering, resisting arrest and assault on a public officer, but the latter two charges have since been dismissed. She was freed on an unsecured bond. A phone number associated with Moore was disconnected.
Her attorney, Ronald Haynes, told The Associated Press in an email that Moore “is recovering and receiving treatment for her mental health.”
“The heinous actions of former Officer Karson Hyder will forever negatively impact Ms. Cherrie Moore and her family,” Haynes continued. “It’s a small relief that city officials responded so promptly to terminate and charge Mr. Hyder.”
Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
North Carolina
North Carolina investigators use drone to arrest man in fatal shooting of Virginia deputy
DOBSON, N.C. — Investigators in North Carolina used a drone to find and arrest a man wanted in connection with the fatal shooting of a Virginia sheriff’s deputy who was conducting a welfare check, authorities said.
The suspect, identified as Michael Puckett, was found with a gun on Sunday night, two days after the shooting, as he was ringing the doorbell of a home several miles away from the Virginia state line. He was arrested in North Carolina’s Surry County and was booked without bond, the state’s bureau of investigation said in a news release. Multiple law enforcement agencies took part in the search.
Puckett, 55, faced an extradition hearing Monday in North Carolina. He did not have an attorney listed, a court clerk said. It was not immediately known where Puckett was from.
The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said the fatal shooting occurred after law enforcement received a request from a family member to do a welfare check on Friday.
A man at the home began shooting, and the two sheriff’s deputies who had responded returned fire, the sheriff’s office said. Both deputies were hit.
Carroll County Sheriff Kevin Kemp said Deputy Logan Utt was killed. The second deputy, who was struck in his ballistic vest, was recovering at home and was in good condition, Kemp said at a news conference Sunday night.
Other people were in the home at the time. They were not hurt, Kemp said.
Utt, 31, was a military veteran who joined the department in 2023. A funeral procession was scheduled Monday afternoon from Roanoke, Virginia, to a funeral home in Mount Airy, North Carolina.
“He had a servant’s heart. He cared for others, he cared for his country, he cared for his family,” Kemp said.
The suspect who shot at two Virginia deputies who were conducting a welfare check in Virginia was apprehended in Surry County, North Carolina Sunday, said the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office.
The suspect, identified by the U.S. Marshals Office as 55-year-old Michael Timothy Puckett, was spotted on camera in North Carolina on earlier in the say, according to the Wytheville Police Department.
Police say the suspect he was seen on a wildlife game camera in Surry County, North Carolina, at 6:56 a.m.
A sheriff’s deputy in Carroll County died Friday after the suspect shot at the two deputies, according to law enforcement officials.
The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office said the fatal shooting occurred after law enforcement received a request from a family member to do a welfare check.
A man at the home began shooting, and the deputies returned fire, the sheriff’s office said. Both deputies were hit.
“One deputy sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced deceased. The second deputy was struck in his ballistic vest and is currently receiving medical evaluation and is reported to be in stable condition,” the office said in a statement.
Sheriff Kevin A. Kemp identified the officer who died as Deputy Logan Utt, a military veteran who joined the department in 2023.
“Today, Carroll County has lost a hero, and a family has suffered an unimaginable loss,” Kemp said. “Please keep his wife, children, family, friends, and fellow deputies in your thoughts and prayers.”
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