William Gattis and Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On a timeline (clip)
Interviewed on March 26, 2025
Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): So, do you have the time frame better?
Dr. Courtney Rivard (CR): So I have 1865-1870 when reconstruction began and then, and, I don’t know if this is too much time, 1865 to 1920, the birth of … the solidification of Jim Crow, then 1920 to 1950?
William Gattis (WG): If I had the timeframe, then I would say 1870 to the 1900’s, that’s when we get the Birth of a Nation and all that stuff that was also part of the pushback, and then you have us up to 1929 which was the crash and the point there is that we are surviving that period and then you have us, from say the crash in 1929 up to “the 50’s” or maybe around that time that OC (Orange County Training School) was started, but then around 1951 or so, somewhere between 1949 and ’51 we get Lincoln High School, you see.
CR: So, Lincoln High School is like a threshold moment
WG: Right definitely because then we are able to go higher in the education ladder and then from there to, I would say 1966, when we may have formally been going to Chapel Hill High out on Homestead. And then, of course, you’ve got that period into the 70’s and then I guess you could go decades.
CR: Like you could go 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s…
PJ: And in those 18 somethings, had to be, this is where our ancestors I guess were being kept by the White people in town because all of them are buried in the cemetery right at the end of campus. William Gattis: That’s why we can look at Wilson Caldwell, November Caldwell as timelines for that part because I think that it was Wilson that had the first school before we … down where Henderson Street is before we get to the Hackney School. But those names kind of frame that part of the time.
Virginia Carson (VC): Aren’t you glad you asked?
CR: I definitely, I have learned so much.
