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Oral History

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

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

“It was hard times, but it was good times. It was hard times, but it was fair times. It was hard times, but we appreciated what was there. We appreciated our parents, we appreciated the school structure, the community structure, the church structure. All of these were important components of growing up.”

- Hilliard Caldwell

Hilliard Caldwell grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Chapel Hill during segregation and had a leadership role in the civil rights movement in Chapel Hill. Caldwell discusses his childhood and his experience in segregated schools, including the cognitive dissonance that came from learning “All men are created equal” when himself and everyone around him knew that they weren’t being treated as such. He then goes on to describe being the PTA president in a Carrboro school, the impact church has had on him over the years, and his involvement leading Chapel Hill’s civil rights movement.

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

Citation: The Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, “Hilliard Caldwell - On the African American freedom struggle and Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill (Interview One),” From the Rock Wall, accessed November 23, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/hilliard-caldwell-on-the-african-american-freedom-struggle-and-civil-rights-movement-in-chapel-hill-interview.

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.