Oral Histories

“I guess I’d like to be remembered as someone who stood up for something she thought was right.” - Rosemary Ezra This interview is a part of a series conducted by Yonni Chapman that focuses on African American participants in the freedom struggle and civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill,…

Eugene Farrar: [Singing] “We came this far by faith, lean on the Lord.” My, my, my, that’s a great song. I don’t know all of the words to it, but I love to hear the song being sung because that’s how African Americans come through slavery you know, come this far by faith-leaning on the Lord. Even…

Eugene Farrar: Again this picture demonstrates some of the things that, that is very dear and near to my heart is the registering of people to vote. Because I think if you register to vote [it] is one thing, but then voting is another thing. You need to have people’s vote counted, it–it’s good to…

Eugene Farrar: Right now, I see a lot of work to be done. A lot of work to be done. You know in housing, you know we speak of – the most houses in Chapel Hill is public housing. You can’t live in Chapel Hill, where African-Americans really dominated this town, as well as all of your major urban…

In this interview, Eugene Farrar reminisces on his time as a political organizer and activist. Farrar was born and raised in Chapel Hill. He lived in Baltimore from 1963 to 2001, where he would become involved in political organizing and community activism. The assassination of Martin Luther King…

Eugene Farrar (EF): Yes, the family member in the photo is my uncle, who is my grandfather’s son, and what I know from growing up, he was a rock layer – he laid rocks – which was a really tough job. You had to break rocks and small rocks and things like that to fit – like a puzzle really. It was a…

Eugene Farrar (EF): I used to help when I was 12 or 13 years old, but I couldn’t handle big rocks like grown men could, but I would go out and give my hand every once and a while, and of course, I didn’t get paid, but it was a thing of family helping family. And of course, if I didn’t get paid,…

Eugene Farrar (EF): But those were days where they would start working in the morning before the sun came up and work till the sun went down in a lot of cases because they wanted to put in long hours – they were getting paid by the hour, not by the job. So – George Barrett (GB): And Mr. Farrar, you…

Eugene Farrar (EF): My daddy was a self-made cement finisher who did it for over 50 years. George Barrett (GB): What was your dad’s name? EF: Toy Farrar, Sr. And he worked in Virginia because there wasn’t any work in Chapel Hill, and he worked for the university when they were building the hospital.…

Eugene Farrar (EF): You know, like I say, doing this rock work was something to behold. My grandfather did – my family and I’m sure probably some other people did it – but I do know my family laid most of the rock down on the University. And they’re still there. George Barrett (GB): And by your…

Eugene Farrar (EF): Because you could trust him to do it. What makes you the best is knowing your craft. He didn’t go to school to learn how to pour cement – he taught himself how to do it. So that made him one of the “go-to” people in Chapel Hill. There were other people finishing cement – Mr. Earl…

Eugene Farrar (EF): They would buy some rocks. I’m sure that they had places where they were buying them. I never knew where they bought rock and things like that. I don’t think we had a rock yard. There may have been a rock yard around here somewhere, but I don’t know where it was. They built…

Eugene Farrar (EF): I think hard work, but struggle of course, hard work and struggle back then. Perseverance – we had to make it, so we made the best out of what we had, and that wasn’t very much. Very few cars were in Chapel Hill.

Eugene Farrar (EF): My family was a very large family, and we sacrificed, and we would help each other, give each other – if you raised a garden and you had peas, string beans, potatoes, and somebody else raised a garden that had cucumbers, tomatoes, and something else, we would exchange. If you had…

Eugene Farrar (EF): I just want to say thank you all for what you’re doing. The only way our history can get told right is that we have to tell it. So I appreciate what you all are doing to explore that avenue of telling history like it’s supposed to be told, from the people who lived it. We’re the…

Audio recordings of interviews conducted by Yonni Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C.

This interview was a part of the History Potluck held by the Marian Cheek Jackson Center in October 2019. In this interview, Dennis Farrington, a current member of the Northside community reflects on his life. He discusses growing up in Chapel Hill and the integration of schools in the city. He also…

Dennis Farrington spent the first part of his life in the Northside area of Chapel Hill before moving to a home off of NC Hwy 54, and he has deep roots in Chatham County, North Carolina. He attended Chapel Hill High School after it was newly integrated. He spent most of his working career at UNC…

This interview is part of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center’s Life History Series. Minister Willis Farrington, an associate pastor at S. Joseph CME Church, grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He grew up going to St. Joseph CME all his life and has never been a member of another church. In 1975 he…

This interview is part of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center’s Life History Series. Reverend Willis Farrington, a leader of St. Joseph CME Church, was born in Chapel Hill and spent the entirety of his childhood running the streets of Northside and the Roberson Street Community Center. Reverend…