Stanley Vickers - On his childhood, family, and school integration
Interviewed by Bob Gilgor on November 20, 2000
“I got the sense that it was more than just a job to them [teachers]. I really got the sense from my teachers that they cared about me.”
- Stanley Vickers
Stanley Vickers has been a member of the Chapel Hill community for a long time. He grew up in Carrboro and attended both Lincoln High School and Chapel Hill High School. He reflects on his childhood, his family, and his education growing up during the Civil Rights movement in Chapel Hill. He speaks of the values and lessons he was taught by his family and teachers, contributing to who he is today. Additionally, he reflects on both Lincoln and Chapel Hill High School by telling of his experience transitioning from an all-Black school to a newly desegregated school. He was one of the first Black students to attend the newly desegregated high school, effecting the experiences he had attending the school. The interview allows Mr. Vickers an opportunity to discuss growing up and attending school in Chapel Hill during the time of desegregation and the fight for racial equality. While his experiences as a Black man weren't always positive, he recognizes that he’s been blessed and he wouldn’t be who he is today without having gone through what he’s gone through.
This interview is part of an oral history project called Southern Communities: Listening for a Change: Mighty Tigers--Oral Histories of Chapel Hill's Lincoln High School. The interviewes were conducted from 2000-2001, by Bob Gilgor, with former teachers, staff, and students from Chapel Hill, N.C.'s Lincoln High School, the historically black secondary school that closed in 1962 when a school desegregation plan was implemented. Interviewees discuss African American life and race relations in Chapel Hill, as well as education, discipline, extracurricular activities, and high school social life before and after integration.
