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Oral History

Mary Mason Boyd - On the African American freedom struggle and Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill

Interviewed by John Kenyon "Yonni" Chapman on April 18, 1991

"We thought that since it’s a fight for the Black cause, it should be located in the Black community and establishment."

- Mary Mason Boyd

This interview is part of an oral history interview project conducted by Yonni Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the Civil Rights Movement in and around Chapel Hill, NC. Mary Mason Boyd was born in Chapel Hill, where she says she had a very happy childhood. As a teenager and young adult, she began to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill, becoming one of the movement’s local leaders. In this interview, she discusses life in Chapel Hill when the town was segregated, the Movement’s tactics and strategies, and she shares stories of sit-ins, marches, and other non-violent protest methods she was involved in.

Oral history interview of Boyd, Mary Mason conducted by Chapman, John Kenyon "Yonni" on April 18, 1991 at Chapel Hill, NC. Processed by Bowers, Caroline.

Citation: The Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, “Mary Mason Boyd - On the African American freedom struggle and Civil Rights Movement in Chapel Hill,” From the Rock Wall, accessed October 22, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/mary-mason-boyd-on-the-african-american-freedom-struggle-and-civil-rights-movement-in-chapel-hill-part.

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.