Home > Oral Histories > Civil Rights Story Circle - On their experiences in Chapel Hill in the 1960s
Oral History

Civil Rights Story Circle - On their experiences in Chapel Hill in the 1960s

Interviewed by Hudson Vaughan and Alexander Stephens on March 24, 2012

Freedom fighters Euyvonne Cotton, James Foushee, William Carter, Linda Brown, Keith Edwards, and Marion Phillips gathered upstairs at St. Joseph C.M.E. to talk about their experiences as young people in the freedom movement in Chapel Hill 1960-1964. Spurred by the recent publication of Courage in the Moment: The Civil Rights Struggle, 1961-1964 by James Wallace and Paul Dickson featuring previously unknown images, the participants recall marches and non-violent protests as well as police harassment, arrests, and imprisonment. They also credit the support they received from friends, families, and churches for the strength it took to continue the struggle.

Civil Rights Story Circle - On their experiences in Chapel Hill in the 1960s

View Summary
View Text

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Oral history interview of Cotton, Euyvonne conducted by Vaughan, Hudson on March 24, 2012 at Marian Cheek Jackson Center. Processed by Shannon, Leslie.

Citation: Marian Cheek Jackson Center, “Civil Rights Story Circle - On their experiences in Chapel Hill in the 1960s,” From the Rock Wall, accessed July 7, 2022, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/civil-rights-story-circle.

"We’re writing our own history, thank you!"

Ms. Esphur Foster

Want to add in?  Have a different view?  What do you think? Want to upload your own photos or documents?

History is not the past.  It’s the sense we make of the past now. Click below to RESPOND—and be part of making history today.

Respond

In this Oral History

Keith Edwards

"You can only hold stuff in for so long." - Keith Edwards Keith Edwards is a native of Chapel Hill and has been a leader in the community for decades. Keith was one of the first black students to integrate Chapel Hill Junior High School in seventh grade. Ms. Keith later went on to work as a police…

James Foushee

William Carter

"And so, we started to talk—singing, organizing a little bit, marching a little bit, and then that’s when we started forming this executive committee." - William Carter

Euyvonne Cotton

Marion Phillips

More to explore

 Carol Brooks and Keith Edwards - On the Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill

The interviewees provide an overview of the Chapel Hill Civil Rights Movement. They specifically note the emotion of CRM marches of Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham in 1963. They speak on Watt’s Hotel discrimination and Civil Rights leadership in the area, especially of the friendly Pottersfield…

 Keith Edwards - On housing and gentrification in Northside

Keith Edwards has lived at the same address on McDade St. in Northside since she was born but now resides in a different house, built with support from a development grant that Chapel Hill received in the early 1970s. She became the first black female police officer at UNC in 1974 and later won a…

 Keith Edwards - On the importance of food

“Sundays were always a special day. That whole day was made into just like a holiday. - Keith Edwards This interview includes Keith Edwards’s viewpoint on the importance of food in the home and in the community.  She recalls specific recipes in the interview. Edwards was born and raised in Carrboro…

 Keith Edwards - On the future of Northside and the impact of the Jackson Center

Keith Edwards discusses the impact the Jackson Center and student organizations on the Northside community as well as the challenges posed by ongoing gentrification of the neighborhood brought about by the conversion of single family homes into high occupancy student accommodation. Edwards expresses…

 Keith Edwards - On Carrboro, gentrification, and white students' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement

Edwards discusses her life in Carrboro and how she felt safe within the Black community but unsafe within the city of Carrboro as a whole. She recounts incidents of violence, Ku Klux Klan activity and police intimidation in the 1930s and 1950s. She moved to Chapel Hill to be provided a different,…

 Katie Mimmack’s visual interpretation of Keith Edward’s oral history.

 Keith Edwards - On race in Chapel Hill compared to Carrboro

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…

 Marian Phillips, William Carter, and Keith Edwards

 Keith Edwards

 Linda Brown, Keith Edwards, and James Foushee

 Keith Edwards

 Keith Edwards and Barbara Ross

This interview is part of a group of interviews conducted by Susan Simone exploring the lives and struggle of various members of the Northside community: a historically black and primarily residential neighborhood located immediately northwest of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and…

Poem on Northside by Jasmine (Juice) Farmer

I never truly understood the meaning of community until I witnessed The Northside.I knew the power of a village and the power of prayer,But I had never been a part of a community more powerful, more stronger, & a place that seeped resilience more than the northside.I only got to experience the…

 Alyssa Oppenwal responds artistically to an interview with James Foushee

 James Foushee

 James Foushee - On the Civil Rights Movement, family, and Northside

Foushee speaks on growing up in Northside which includes his educational experiences, and his family overview. He goes into the dynamics of his relationship with his aunt. Furthermore, he talks about his relationship with his neighbor. He takes the listener through the beginning and organization of…

 William Carter - On school integration and the Civil Rights Movement

William Carter discusses the movement and his background. He was born in the Bronx, New York in 1949 and discusses his heritage with a grandma being a Lumbee Native American and father being an African American. Carter moved back to North Carolina because his aunt was in poor health and he discusses…

 William Carter

 William Carter

 William Carter Comment

Northside News Volume II, Edition 4

Northside News Volume II, Edition 5
Back to all oral histories