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Oral History

Hilliard Caldwell - His parents (clip)

Interviewed by John Kenyon "Yonni" Chapman on March 26, 1991

Interviewer: I’m going to try to get straight on a few of the things that he’s already mentioned. Could you tell me your birth date?

Hilliard Caldwell: February 26, 1937

Interviewer: Were you born at home? Hospital?

Hilliard Caldwell: Yes, I was one of those home babies attended to by a midwife back in those day. Miss Minnie Thompson. I remember my mom calling that name on many a days. Miss Minnie Thompson, I believe was her name.

Interviewer: What was your father’s name?

Hilliard Caldwell: His name was Alexander King.

Interviewer: Alexander King Caldwell.

Hilliard Caldwell: King. I took my mother’s name.

Interviewer: And your mother’s name?

Hilliard Caldwell: Irene Caldwell.

Interviewer: What was your father’s work?

Hilliard Caldwell: He worked at a fraternity house as I can recall until he was drafted into the army and, of course, he went off and was sent to the European theater as the history tells us and that was where he was killed in the European theater.

Interviewer: Do you know what year that was?

Hilliard Caldwell: I’m sorry. I don’t know that year but his name is on the battleship North Carolina, USS North Carolina as one the men from North Carolina who gave their lives in the Second World War.

Oral history interview of Caldwell, Hilliard conducted by Chapman, John Kenyon "Yonni" on March 26, 1991 at Chapel Hill, NC.

Citation: The Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, “Hilliard Caldwell - His parents (clip),” From the Rock Wall, accessed July 14, 2025, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/hilliard-caldwell-his-parents-clip.

Rights: Open for research. The Southern Historical Collection (SHC) welcomes non-commercial use and access that qualifies as fair use to all unrestricted interview materials in the collection. The researcher must cite and give proper credit to the SHC. The SHC requests that the researcher informs the SHC as to how and where they are using the material.

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Hilliard Caldwell - His parents (clip)

In this Oral History

Hilliard Caldwell - On the African American freedom struggle and Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill (Interview One)

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