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Minister Robert Campbell - Buff and shine (clip)

Interviewed by George Barrett and Kathryn Wall on October 28, 2022

Minister Robert Campbell - Buff and shine (clip)

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Oral history interview of Campbell, Robert conducted by Barrett, George on October 28, 2022 at RENA Community Center, Chapel Hill, NC.

Citation: Marian Cheek Jackson Center, “Minister Robert Campbell - Buff and shine (clip),” From the Rock Wall, accessed December 22, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/minister-robert-campbell-buff-and-shine-clip.

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In this Oral History

Min. Robert Campbell

"We want our young people to have a sense of worth in this, to have a value about who they are, and not to limit yourself because of your stature because your imagination and your desire can carry you above your stature." - Min. Robert Campbell Min. Robert "Peter" Campbell grew up in Northside. Many…

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Min. Robert Campbell is a well-known local activist who was raised by his grandparents in the Northside neighborhood. He attended Northside and Lincoln and was in the first desegregated graduating class at Chapel Hill High School (Class of ’67). He moved to Rogers Road in the 1970s where he has been…

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Minister Robert Campbell: There were, there were times where there were a lot of brick masons here in Chapel Hill, people of color. The thing is, once you begin to teach skills and then it came, it came a time, and that time did not change back until I will say… around about the later part of the…

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Robert Campbell: Going back to constructing some of the houses. Uncle Leo and Uncle Handy and Uncle Bill taught us how to sling bricks. George Barrett: Ok. RC: Sling bricks. Sometimes you could take a flat board, almost like a paddle, you could throw the bricks up and somebody could catch them and…

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Minister Robert Campbell: We did blueprints. It was easy to do the sketches first, because you could say well, this is what we got, do we want the storage room a little bit bigger? So, it gave people the opportunity to change their minds. Do you want the front and back door to be centered, or do you…

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Minister Robert Campbell: My grandfather and most of the builders were eager to be tutors and train other people how to do their type of work. It came in handy for us because we didn’t have to look for a summer job – because we already knew what we were going to be doing. We found out to have fun –…

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