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Esphur and Harold Foster - Children Create Community (clip)

Interviewed by Hudson Vaughan on April 1, 2010

Esphur Foster (EF): Cause children always…

Hudson Vaughan (HV): Create

EF: Yeah they do, yeah they do. Chante, had met a little girl and her father was wonderful. He taught science at Chapel Hill High. He was the most incredible man and they just fell in love with each other. So then, she wanted, Chante, to come and spend the night so I got a chance to meet them and talk to them. So I let her, that’s the only family I would let Chante spend the night with. And they were Jewish, well he was Catholic and she was Jewish. Her mother was crazy about Chante and they took Chante to a lot of places that I wouldn’t have been able to take her, but I trust them. So they, them becoming friends at daycare caused us to become friends and trust. So if I was to take Chante somewhere and she wanted to take, why can’t I think of the child’s name, they had no problem with her coming with me because we formed that relationship of trust and that’s just the way it has to be.

Esphur and Harold Foster - Children Create Community (clip)

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Oral history interview of Foster, Esphur conducted by Vaughan, Hudson on April 1, 2010 at Chapel Hill, NC.

Citation: Marian Cheek Jackson Center, “Esphur and Harold Foster - Children Create Community (clip),” From the Rock Wall, accessed December 26, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/esphur-and-harold-foster-children-create-community.

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Ms. Esphur Foster

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In this Oral History

Esphur Foster

"We are nothing without our history." - Esphur Foster

 Esphur and Harold Foster - On her mother, education, and impact of the Civil Rights Movement

Esphur Foster has lived on Cotton Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for 70 years.  In this interview, Foster discusses the powerful life of her mother, Hattie Mae Foster, as well as growing up in Chapel Hill during a pivotal time in history. She also describes much about life before, during, and…

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Hudson Vaughn (HV): Were you involved also in some of the marches, like Harold? Esphur Foster (EF): No he was at the forefront. I did march, in one or two of them. We had to take an oath, not to be nonviolent and mother always taught us to support each other if we were doing right. So we thought…

 Esphur and Harold Foster - On their mother, Hattie Mae Foster's passing, and the community response to her death (clip)

Esphur Foster (EF): So when we took her down to the hospital that next morning Charley sent word over to the dental school and she said, tell everybody if they want to see Hattie for the last time to say goodbye, to come over. So when we got ready to leave Hudson, the whole Emergency Room dock was…

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Harold Vaughan: So how long have y’all lived in this, this neighborhood? Esphur Foster: Seventy years. HV: Your whole life. EF: Yeah. We have, we had a cookout one night and we brought all of our, a lot of old pictures out and were showing them to everyone at the cookout. We got and left them out,…

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Esphur Foster: And then the boys used to go to the trestle and jump in that sewage water and learn to swim because there was no way- you know, for us- to learn to swim. Hudson Vaughan: Mhm EP: So, they- the girls didn’t play that- so they would go over there and swim in the trestle.

 Esphur Foster and Friends - On the African American freedom struggle and Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill (Yonni Chapman Recording)

Audio recordings of interviews conducted by Yonni Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C.

There are two interviews with Esphur Foster and friends, with one recorded on Yonni Chapman's side of the room and the…

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Esphur Foster (EF): If you don’t know where you came from, you won’t know where you’re going. Harold Foster (HF): Mhm-mm [in agreement] EF: You gotta know where you came from. Hudson Vaughan (HV): And Mrs. Jackson’s quote is “If you don’t know --Without the past, we have no future.” EF: Future!…

 Esphur and Harold Foster - On her mother, education, and impact of the Civil Rights Movement

Esphur Foster has lived on Cotton Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for 70 years.  In this interview, Foster discusses the powerful life of her mother, Hattie Mae Foster, as well as growing up in Chapel Hill during a pivotal time in history. She also describes much about life before, during, and…

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Still living in the house their mother had built 70 years ago, the Foster siblings have dedicated their lives to justice. Harold was a leader in the local civil rights movement; Esphur is a community historian known everywhere in North Carolina for her leadership at UNC’s law school; Charley is a…

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