Betty King - on opportunities after graduating high school (clip)
Interviewed by Bob Gilgor on January 18, 2001
RG: Do you have any idea when you graduated, how many went on to get a college degree or started college?
BK: Most of them that finished school went on.
RG: Went on to college?
BK: To college, yes. And a lot of them left Chapel Hill because there was no future for them in Chapel Hill. The only thing you could do in Chapel Hill was to work at the university, which you made nothin', you know. And the only way to make any money, you had to leave Chapel Hill. With the education that a lot of 'em went to college, never came back to Chapel Hill to live. Now there's always been a closeness with the people in Chapel Hill. And that's where the reunion that you're talkin' about, we had it, we first started it, my class was the one that started that reunion. And first we were havin' it every five years, and then it, so many people started dying now, so we started, now we have it every three years. And, but we were always, always very close, but then a lot of them left because they wanted jobs, better jobs, and there was nothing in Chapel Hill.
RG: So the young black person who got a college degree had to leave to find work? Is that a fair statement?
BK: No, they didn't have to find work, they just did not come back to Chapel Hill. Everybody didn't feel about Chapel Hill like I feel about Chapel Hill, but when they left they didn't come back. Now a lot of 'em are comin' back now, as they retire they're comin' back..??..
RG: Let's say I was black and I graduated from Lincoln, and I went to North Carolina Central and I got a chemistry degree. Or A&T.
BK: Then you had to go somewhere where they could use you.
RG: They couldn't use you here.
BK: Not in Chapel Hill, no.
RG: Was that because I was black?
BK: Nine times out of ten it was because you were black.
