 He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in 1944 and attended Princeton University for two years before leaving to teach at the Massachusetts State College.He returned to Chapel Hill, graduating in 1951 with a master's degree in political science and in 1953 a bachelor's degree in library science.He then held positions at the Livingston State Teachers College in Alabama from 1953 to 1955) and served as a librarian at Emory University from 1955 to 1962.