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James Atwater - On the importance of Black teachers (clip)

Listen to James Atwater speak about the importance and impact of Black educators and his teacher Mrs. Turner. Mr. Atwater is an alumni of Lincoln High School, the Black high school prior to desegregation.

James Atwater - On Pottersfield and influential teachers at Lincoln High School

“I would preface that by saying that our school was again so small that practically everyone had to do, I could say, had to play multiple roles because we simply did not have enough people to go around and to have the kinds of programs that we wanted to have.” - James Atwater James Atwater grew up…

James Atwater - On how the memory of desegregation shapes local schools

This interview is part of a project conducted by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate and undergraduate students in a 2001 oral history course. Topics include Chapel Hill's efforts to end racial segregation in the public schools; the process of creating integrated institutions; and…

James Atwater

James Atwater grew up on Church St. as one of five siblings. Before working for the hospital at the University of North Carolina, his mother was an insurance agent for North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company in Durham, the oldest and largest African American life insurance company in the…

James "Jim" Wallace - Speaking about the Civil Rights Movement and his photography

"...if everyone in the student body at Chapel Hill couldn’t walk across Franklin Street and be able to eat anywhere they wanted, that that just simply wasn’t right." - Jim Wallace In this interview, Wallace speaks about Civil rights in Chapel Hill, resistance within the movement, and differences of…

James "Jim" Wallace

Jim Wallace was a journalism student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and a photographer for the Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper. In the early 1960s the newspaper decided to cover the emerging civil rights movement in Chapel Hill, and over the course of several years,…

Jacqueline Battle Pratt

Jacob Pursel - On education

"I think a lot of [being an ally to black educators] is leaning on the fact that I am a white educator and that I am learning and that knowing that learning is a process. Knowing that I don’t know everything, knowing that I will make mistakes and will continue making mistakes, but knowing that I…

Jacob Pursel

Jacob Pursel is a social studies teacher at Culbreth Middle School in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools system.

Jacob James and his taxi company, Tar Heel Taxi No. 1

Photos courtesy of Arminta Foushee

Jackson Center with Thomas Hoyt

Isabel Atwater - On her family's laundry business (clip)

Isabel Atwater - On growing up during World War II, Black businesses, and Civil Rights

Ms. Atwater speaks about life growing up in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area during World War II. She shares her experiences with her husband, Roy Atwater and her education at the rural Merritt School and Orange County Training School. She was familiar with food rations throughout the time and had…

Isabel Atwater

Born in 1925, Isabel Atwater has near a century of lived experience in Orange County. A self-described “country girl,” she grew up raising animals and building gardens. Atwater remembers growing up in the Jim Crow South and finding strength in the Black community and the Black-owned businesses that…

Isaac W. Lee II - On being a good neighbor

This short interview includes Lee’s description of what a good neighbor is. Lee says that a good neighbor looks out for the other’s wellbeing, health, safety, and financial hard times. He also describes his roommate experiences as a way to exemplify how to be a good neighbor.