Cecilia Davis - On growing up in Raleigh and teaching at Lincoln High
Interviewed by Bob Gilgor on April 19, 2001
"I believe in encouraging students, because sometimes they don’t think they’re worth anything."
- Cecilia Davis
In this oral history, Cecilia Davis explores her time as a teacher in Chapel Hill at Lincoln High School and Phillips Junior High. She recalls what teaching was like before and after integration took place. Ms. Davis discusses the racial tensions and eventual peace that occurred between Black and white students at Phillips after integration. She discusses the impact poverty had on her students, as well as the positive impact of the encouragement given by teachers to students. She also discusses the negative impact that the process of labeling had on her students during her time at both schools.
This interview is part of an oral history project called Southern Communities: Listening for a Change: Mighty Tigers--Oral Histories of Chapel Hill's Lincoln High School. The interviewes were conducted from 2000-2001, by Bob Gilgor, with former teachers, staff, and students from Chapel Hill, N.C.'s Lincoln High School, the historically black secondary school that closed in 1962 when a school desegregation plan was implemented. Interviewees discuss African American life and race relations in Chapel Hill, as well as education, discipline, extracurricular activities, and high school social life before and after integration.
