Oral Histories

Kathryn Wall (KW): Alright, this is Kathryn Wall from the Marian Cheek Jackson Center. We are here at Saint Joseph’s CME Church on November 1st, 2022. Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): I am Pat Jackson. I have the privilege of speaking with the archivist team this morning at Saint Joseph’s CME Church…

Kathryn Wall (KW): It sounds like even if a minister’s only gonna be there, maybe potentially only be there for a year or a couple of years, that those church officers then become a stabilizing part of leadership. Pat Jackson (PJ): And that’s a great point because we've always been charged as…

Patricia Jackson: We always were proud to be able to, once they got to our church grounds, we were always eager to run them right down to Hargraves Center because that was our stomping grounds. That was where we had all of our fun and did all of our interactions socially with dances, the movies, and…

Kathryn Wall: Hi, this is Kathryn Wall from the Marian Cheek Jackson Center, it is September 26th, 2023, and we’re here at St. Joseph’s CME Church. Patricia “Pat” Jackson: I am Pat Jackson, I am here at St. Joseph CME Church sharing communication about the life and times of St. Joseph’s. Anna…

Kathryn Wall: So to contextualize a little bit this period in the church’s history, you said you were out doing your thing during this time period, what was Chapel Hill like in the mid-70s? Patricia “Pat” Jackson: Rebounding and trying to stay afloat from the segregation and uproar of the 60s in the…

Kathryn Wall (KW): I’m sure it varied some, but when some of these older generation that had become homeowners and had been able to have the financial stability to support the church, I know when we look at the housing in this area one of the issues is trying to retain homeownership, when folks…

Kathryn Wall: What kind of qualities in a pastor inspired young people to get involved, do you think? Patricia Jackson: I think anytime that you were a little, not so much liberal, but not so stuffed shirt and rigid. If you had, you know, just some charisma or some excitement about you or something,…

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…

Food takes center stage for Janie Johnson. In this interview, she describes in vivid imagery, along with accompanying envisioned smells, the kitchens of her mother and grandmother and all the food that came out of them. Several times, Ms. Johnson mentions how the sassafras tea that her grandmother…

"My momma bought a house, four walls that did not have running water, did not have a bathroom, and did not have a kitchen sink. She walked through the door and began working on that house and every year we are still doing renovations to that house. They bought it in ’52 and here it is in 2019, and I…

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.

In this interview, Northside resident Edward Jones discusses a wide range of personal and community events that have shaped his life into what he sees it as today. Mr. Jones begins his story by talking about his relatives and their experiences: grandparents who worked and owned a dry-cleaners,…

“First of all, I think that any person who comes to this community to teach in the school system should have a tour of Chapel Hill prior to teaching, so that they will know where the different neighborhoods are and what the neighborhoods are all about. They should know where the historical places…

Mary Norwood Jones is a Chapel Hill Native that attended Lincoln High School while it was still Orange County Training School. She discusses her childhood in the Chapel Hill area around the time of World War II and how the community was close knit. She then goes on to talk about the school and how…

Mary Norwood Jones shares her memories of Santa.To hear more from Mary Norwood Jones, listen to her full oral history "Mary Norwood Jones - On her experiences at Orange County Training School."

Mary Norwood Jones (MNJ): Well, not at Northside. It was Orange County Training School and this school became Northside in 1951. My class was the last graduating class to attend this school and graduate from twelfth grade. At that particular time it was named Lincoln. The name of the school was…

"They had a very high reputation in the community. They did excellent work. One thing that my father always said, that when they finished their job, they didn’t have to go back…They did quality work, quality construction." -Vernelle Brooks Jones "I loved just doing things with my hands and then…

Vernelle Brooks Jones: Because back, all the way back to my great grandfather who was also a builder. His, he was the first Charles David Brooks. And then my grandaddy was Charles David Brooks II. And onto my dad, Charles David Brooks III and my brother Charles David Brooks IV. And my nephew is…

Vernelle Brooks Jones: I will say, tell a little story about this. My father shared this with us, he always went with his dad wherever he went because he was the one that took up the building aspect of the business. He was browner in complexion, and he said he would go in downtown Chapel Hill to one…

Charles Brooks: I mean they would come to my father and grandfather with a set of plans, they would go from there. Sometimes you had to deviate from the plans to save money. But they definitely had to work hand in hand with the owners to find what they had and couldn’t have. They definitely dealt…

Charles Brooks: My father and grandfather, their pricing would always be a lot lower than if they had gone to a larger contractor. So, a lot of people we did work for, we, my grandfather and my father, saved them a lot of money. Vernelle Brooks Jones: So, I will just add to that, that unfortunately…

Vernelle Brooks Jones: I would say that you know they were very persistent in their trade. In spite of the lack of funds and lack of opportunities and all the other things that go around that, they ended up being successful builders. And to this day, the legacy of what they did years ago is still…

Charles Brooks: For me, I would say a lot of hard work. Back then if you had your own business you had to put a lot of hard work into it and there was a lot to overcome as far as finances if you wanted to go out and do stuff on your own, it was kind of hard to get the financing to do things, so I…