David Caldwell, Jr. - Going to town (clip)
Interviewed by Darius Scott on September 23, 2014
David Caldwell, Jr.: Because when we moved out here, I was in the third grade, so it was the [19]60s, and there was not a lot of houses. There was not a lot of things going on that you could do, so we spent a lot of our time in the woods. There were maybe thirteen kids out here at the time on the entire road. To go to town, as they say, was a thrill. It was a great opportunity for us to get up to see so many people and all the cars, and I even remember being a young guy, seeing horses and wagons being drawn down Franklin Street. DS: Um-hmm. DC: So, that type of thing. So, it was always a thrill. Then you had the black part of town, you know, Merritt Mill Road, gosh, Graham Street, Johnson Street all these areas was reallyRoberson Street. I mean, it was you had black movies, black businesses, stores, movies, hairdressers, barbers all these businesses were in here. I mean, it was booming! And you had your own. I think in the [19]50s, Chapel Hill was probably about fifty percent black, fifty-four percent black in the [19]50s. And now, it s somewhere between nine and thirteen percent.
Tags: audio clip
Oral history interview of Caldwell, Jr., David conducted by Scott, Darius on September 23, 2014 at Chapel Hill, NC.
Citation: Marian Cheek Jackson Center, “David Caldwell, Jr. - Going to town (clip),” From the Rock Wall, accessed September 7, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/david-caldwell-jr-going-to-town-clip.
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