Doug Clark, Sr. - On growing up in Chapel Hill and high school

Doug Clark, Sr., a musician, was born in Chapel Hill in 1936, where he lived in a close-knit Black neighborhood and attended Orange County Training School, which became Lincoln High School. He reflects on his family life and experiences growing up, such as seeing lines of Black children walk to school, going to church and community shops, playing sports, and observing the hard-working parents in the neighborhood. He emphasizes how much he enjoyed growing up in Chapel Hill and seeing the changes in cities and technology over time. He discusses how integration manifested in his neighborhood, shops, and schools. He remembers playing the drums for his high school band and forming his own all-Black band outside of school, where he booked gigs around Chapel Hill before a word-of-mouth process led him to play at universities and events across the country.

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.