Mighty, Mighty Tigers

“We got what we wanted but we lost what we had.”  One of the local civil rights activists reflected on desegregation of Chapel Hill schools as one of the great paradoxes of the period: integration—largely in the form of accommodation in predominantly white schools--came at a great cost. Not only did the glorious history of the black high school, Lincoln, disappear with the football team’s many trophies and the disenfranchisement of many black teachers but the sustaining connections between church, family, and school in neighborhoods closed under Jim Crow were broken. Community members rose up to confront inequities in desegregation, leading to significant changes in the late 60s, early 1970s. Today, the Lincoln High Alumni Association remains strong and committed to preserving and honoring the history that Chapel Hill High School students reimagine here.