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Oral History

David Caldwell, Jr. - On the Civil Rights Movement and his family

Interviewed by Andrea Wuerth on May 22, 2022

David Caldwell, Jr. - On the Civil Rights Movement and his family

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Oral history interview of Caldwell, Jr., David conducted by Wuerth, Andrea on May 22, 2022 at RENA Center, Chapel Hill, NC.

Citation: Marian Cheek Jackson Center, “David Caldwell, Jr. - On the Civil Rights Movement and his family,” From the Rock Wall, accessed November 21, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/david-caldwell-jr-on-the-civil-rights-movement-and-his-family.

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In this Oral History

David Caldwell, Jr.

A Chapel Hill native, David Caldwell is the Project Director and Community Organizer for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association located in northern Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As part of his position, he collaborates with UNC in research and works with PORCH and summer enrichment programs to…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On his parents, civil rights, and law enforcement

In this interview, David Caldwell, Jr., begins by discussing past generations of Caldwells that came from Chatham County and lived first on Merritt Mill Road, then Durham, then Northside. His family moved to Rogers Road in 1963 when land became available to African-Americans. A major topic is the…

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 David Caldwell, Jr. - On who suffers because of landfills (clip)

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 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the book on the Rogers-Eubanks Landfill (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the fifty-year landfill struggle (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On successful strategies sourcing local support to solve community issues (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the landfill problems (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On Rogers Road's Roots and History (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On Youth Involvement in the Rogers-Eubanks Landfill Removal (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On growing up on Rogers Road (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On landfill employees (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On Greene Tract Development (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On methane and the landfill (clip)

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the history of the Rogers Road community (clip)

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): For Rogers Road we were looking at a mitigation committee that we are working with. One thing they did agree is that, yeah, we’ve got sidewalks and streetlights, but its twenty years down the road. So do you really feel like you’ve done what you were supposed to do, even in…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On race as a factor in environmental justice (clip)

Darius Scott (DS): By thinking about the environmental issues that have been faced by Rogers Road, how do you think race factors into those? David Caldwell, Jr.: Well, [laughs] you are in the South! I mean, that’s… that is the South. That’s what, to me, what the South was based on, was race. That’s…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On RENA (clip)

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): Right now I m the project director and the community organizer. And what I do is special projects that come up, I pretty much organize and get them going and get the community organized into participating. We do a Backpack Back-to-School Bash, where we give our goal is…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On activism (clip)

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): We brought up the fact that they were not keeping the promises that were made. We would go to meetings to voice our protest and, I mean, we were met with disgust and disdain and, “Why are you guys back here again?” [Sound of train passing, whistle blowing] We were bringing…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the landfill's environmental impact (clip)

David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): This was a dirt road, red, dusty, clay. All of this was cornfields, like I said, and a few houses, things, mostly a farming community. And when they did it, the road was so bad that it was tearing up the city s trucks, so they had to pave it sooner than they wanted to. So,…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the initial promises about the landfill (clip)

Darius Scott (DS): Okay. And you mentioned the landfill a bit a moment ago. Could you describe the moments leading up to the landfill coming to Rogers Road? David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): Oh, gosh! We had, basically, it was, like I said, we were a little country neighborhood. They came into my father s…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the Rogers Road neighborhood (clip)

Darius Scott (DS): What brought you guys from Merritt Mill to Rogers Road when you were in the third grade? David Caldwell, Jr. (DC): Oh! Like most of the people out here, we had the opportunity to buy a home. DS: Um-hmm. DC: There was only about thirteen houses out here when we moved out here, and…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - Going to town (clip)

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…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On his career and community

“You made a mistake, but learn from it. Matter of fact, if you learn from it, it’s not a mistake." - David Caldwell, Jr. David Caldwell Jr. gives an overview of his life in Chapel Hill and his experiences in the US Army and his other occupations. He begins by talking about his family and what his…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On his education, sports experience, and family's involvement in law enforcement and the military

"That's what I try to instill, doing what’s right when no one is looking." - David Caldwell, Jr. David Caldwell is a native of Chapel Hill and long time community organizer and activist in the Rogers Road community. Mr. Caldwell brought materials to be scanned during the interview, and large…

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 David Caldwell - On the difficulties between the local government and Rogers-Eubank community concerning the landfill

This interview is part of an SOHP project called Rural South: Backways: Understanding Segregation in the Rural South. The interviews, 2014-, were conducted in the rural piedmont region and eastern North Carolina about the often hidden forces of structural and institutional discrimination that have…

 David Caldwell - On the history of environmental racism in the Rogers Road community

“That’s one reason we’re trying so hard to document everything. Because if you lose your identity, you lose your community…You lose your community, whether it’s from development or people buying it, you lose your identity also. So either way, if you lose either one, you’ve lost completely.” - David…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On his parents, civil rights, and law enforcement

In this interview, David Caldwell, Jr., begins by discussing past generations of Caldwells that came from Chatham County and lived first on Merritt Mill Road, then Durham, then Northside. His family moved to Rogers Road in 1963 when land became available to African-Americans. A major topic is the…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On the integration of Lincoln High School, family, and civil rights

In this interview, the second of two 2017 interviews conducted by Andrea Wuerth, David Caldwell, Jr., discusses his experiences in the newly-integrated Chapel Hill High School. He remembers the difficult early years, describing his accidental role in the riots that took place in Fall 1971, his…

 David Caldwell, Jr. - On his career, community, and the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood

In the interview, Caldwell touches on the following points: his early family life on Rogers Road, which was underdeveloped and exploited; his experiences of discrimination and inequality at Phillips Middle School and Chapel Hill High; attending NCCU on a basketball scholarship; time in the air…
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