In 1953 two journalists for the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service after a series of articles on the Ku Klux Klan that led to an FBI investigation, resulting in 254 convictions of Klansmen.

W. Horace Carter launched the Tabor City Tribune in 1946, shortly after graduating the University of North Carolina journalism school.

[4] The paper published a series of reports and editorials on the Ku Klux Klan starting July 26, 1950, in response to the white supremacist organization's resurgence in the area following World War II.

[3] In 1953, days after the Ku Klux Klan launched a recruiting drive with a parade through Tabor City, Carter published "An Editorial: No Excuse for KKK."

[15] In 1993, during a period of unrest over the dismissal of Black police chief Willie Gore, Carter was quoted in regional news coverage as an authority on race relations in Tabor City.

[19][20][21] The paper was part of a coalition of local and national news outlets that called on a judge to release search warrants sealed during a criminal investigation into voting irregularities in North Carolina's 9th congressional district in 2018.