Home > Items

Browse Items (2167 total)

North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company

"During World War II, [my mom] sold insurance for North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company." - Doug Clark, Sr. North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, founded in Durham, North Carolina in 1898 by John C. Merrick, is one of the oldest and largest Black-owned businesses in the United States.

North Graham Street

"We [had] a sense of community on North Graham Street. Everybody's mother looked after each other. Our neighbors were like our sisters and brothers and we just had a big sense of family." - Clementine Self North Graham Street is part of the historically-Black Sunset neighborhood, now often regarded…

Northside Elementary

"I went to school at Northside. My parents wouldn't allow me to walk to school the first two years ...I was kind of ticked because I wanted to walk...They allowed me to walk to school in third grade. So that was cool, like a half hour walk from my house...all these roads here then were dirt roads.…

Norwood Brothers Esso Service Station

"Northside was closer to Chapel Hill High than it was to Lincoln, and so in passing you would see the white students on the other side of Franklin Street smoking the cigarettes at Ross Norwood's service station in clear view of the schoolyard. Nobody was trying to hide from the either their parents,…

Elmer Pendergraft's Esso Service Station

"Used to be a service station right there called Elmer Pendergraft. Service station right here at the corner, right across from Carolina Carwash...[Dad] worked up until...he got sick. And then Mr. Elmer had to sell the service station because he had gotten sick too...So they just sold it, sold the…

Orange County Training School

"The OCTS is over here, on Caldwell. And my mother’s father was one of the ones that laid the cornerstone, they were all masons. And so I went to what they called Northside, but was OCTS, from 1945 which was when I started...and so my class was the first class that went all the way through from the…

The Pines Restaurant

"As a kid I worked for The Pines down there, where they didn't let no Blacks come in there and eat, and my mommy and my daddy worked back there in the back. By the time I was a senior in high school, you had broken the rule where they could, Blacks could come there and eat." - Thurman Couch Located…

Pottersfield (or Potter's Field)

"We were Potter's Field and Sunset. Students came mostly from Potter's Field and Sunset. So, whites were east of Caldwell Street. Some of them were on the eastern...end of Caldwell Street. Airport Road. Out in that area. So I did not [pass white students heading to Chapel Hill High while walking to…

Rangewood

Rangewood is a neighborhood located off NC 54 West in Chapel Hill, NC.

The Ramshead Rathskeller

"The Danzigers had four restaurants: the Ranch House, the Rathskeller, the Zoom Zoom, and the Villa Teo...The Rathskeller was the first place in North Carolina, I believe — I know in Chapel Hill—that had pizza...Very first place. The Rathskeller employed a lot of Black people." -David Mason, Jr. The…

North Roberson Street

"We did a lot of roller-skating, especially when I got in, probably fourth or fifth grade. We roller-skated all the time. We'd ride our bikes. One of the worst injuries I had was riding that bicycle down Roberson Street. Because at that time there was a big dip in the road and I didn't hit it just…

Carlton's Rock Pile

"That was a very bad experience, because about four or five of us walked in, and Buddy Teagert was the leader, and he said 'sit on the floor..." And then the owner came over and said 'There’s dirt on the floor, I’m going to mop it'” and then he started to pour ammonia on people, hold their nose. So…

Rock Wall

"A lot of people, when they would walk from Northside...walking back, they would just sit on the rock wall right there in front of [Willie Mae Patterson's] house. We used to sit there and just reflect on life and rest." - Keith Edwards, Civil Rights Story Circle interview At the front edge of the…

Rogers Road

"You’re driven by just wanting to make the community, in a way, like what you had. Where they have a place, a physical place, where there’s beauty around them, you know, environmental beauty, where they’re safe...I want young people to have the same sense of security that we had ."
- Minister…

Scarborough & Hargett Celebration of Life Center, Inc.

"Scarborough owned Scarborough Funeral Home in Durham. And they used to have a funeral home in Chapel Hill, too, before they moved to Durham. They had them in both places." - Doug Clark, Sr. Scarborough & Hargett Celebration of Life Center, Inc. began in Kinston, NC in 1871 when grocer J.C.…

R.D. and Euzelle P. Smith Middle School

"They were saying, 'We want Black history courses in this school. We feel like everybody ought to have a knowledge for what the Blacks have contributed to this society.' And yet the textbooks don't even a carry a thing about it...I don't intend for that to happen at R.D. Smith and Euzelle B. Smith's…

Evelyn Dove-Coleman

Evelyn Dove-Coleman established PathChoice Ministry in Chapel Hill in 1992 by bringing role models to speak to underprivileged youth at the Hargraves Community Center in North Side. Then-mayor Ellie Kinnaird and AMIE Tutor Esphur Foster supported bringing the children to the center and feeding them…

 Deshawn Alston - Old School (clip)

 James Blacknell Jr. building a stone wall

James Blacknell Jr. builds a stone wall on the campus of the University of North Carolina. Mr. Blacknell, along with his father (James Blacknell, Sr.) and son (Norman Blacknell) worked as stone masons, constructing many of the prominent stone walls and buildings on the campus of UNC.Photo courtesy…

Staunton Memorial CME Church

Staunton Memorial CME Church is located at 230 Credle Street in Pittsboro, NC.

Sutton's Drug Store

"Most of the news that came out of that was the kind of word of mouth. You know, we're going to march in front of Sutton's today and the word would just kind of come, and after it was over-. I marched in some of these places." - Stanley Vickers Sutton's Drug Store opened in the Strowd Building at…

The Patio

"There's another fellow who came home from World War II and moved back here by 1954. He built a place back here on Merritt Mill Road -- it's no longer there -- called The Patio. He was trying to make it go and all...And in the summer, too, there was a lot of people in Chapel Hill that had nieces and…

Tin Can

"Sometimes the [Lincoln High School basketball] coaches would take the boys to a gym down on UNC campus to play...the Tin Can. They would take them down to practice. They never played a game there. All the games were played over here in our auditorium." - Mary Norwood Jones The Tin Can on the UNC…

Tin Top

"If you come across the railroad track, you’re going to run into Brewer Lane. And when you get there from Brewer Lane, and you come on around the curve, right there is Hargraves Street. That was Tin Top. That little area was up there, Tin Top." - Donny "Hollywood" Riggsbee The Tin Top neighborhood…