Through the fall of 2025, RAFI’s headquarters were located on Pittsboro Elementary School Road in Pittsboro, NC. The conference center in a building next to the offices was named the Dan Pollitt Center, after founding board member Daniel H. Pollitt, in honor of his lifelong service for equal rights and opportunities for all people.

Pollitt was born July 6, 1921, in Washington, D.C. to Mima Riddiford and Basil Hubbard Pollitt. He graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut early to join the Marines. He fought in the Pacific as a Second Lieutenant in World War II, receiving several Purple Hearts. After the war, he attended Cornell Law School and served on the Law Review. He clerked for Judge Henry Edgerton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Later, he joined the Law Firm of Joseph Rauh, Jr., beginning a lifetime of defending civil rights, civil liberties, and fighting injustices in local, state, and national arenas.

In 1951, he married Jean Ann Rutledge (1925 – 2006), daughter of Supreme Court Justice Wiley B. Rutledge and Annabel Person Rutledge. He and his wife of 55 years had three children, Daniel, Phoebe, and Susan.

In 1957, he moved to Chapel Hill, where he joined the faculty at the law school. A constitutional and labor law professor, he was active in numerous organizations, including the NAACP, ACLU, AAUP, Southerners for Economic Justice, and RAFI. He was president of the faculty for four years.

Some of the honors and awards he received include the Order of the Long-Leaf Pine, the Jefferson Award, the Order of the Golden Fleece, the NC ACLU Frank Porter Graham and Finlator Awards, and the Robert Seymour Award from People of Faith Against the Death Penalty.

He loved teaching and taught at Georgetown, Wake Forest, Duke, American University, the University of Oregon, and the University of Arkansas law schools. Until January 2010, he taught a constitutional law course for Duke’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

RAFI has subsequently sold the buildings to the Town of Pittsboro, reflecting the trend of people working from home and the extension of RAFI’s reach beyond North Carolina. See our blog on a celebration of the transition.