Oral Histories

Albert Williams: You know, there's failure in us, but like everybody else, we’ll strive, and even though we should have a higher standard [pause], you know, and really strive to live according to that standard. Rob Stephens: Yes. Albert Williams: But many of us fail in so many ways. We are human,…

Albert Williams: Things were segregated. That’s why I’m saying the people in Carrboro don’t know what was going on. When you cross that railroad track at night, that was the white side of town. You didn’t have no business in Carrboro. Rob Stephens: I’ve heard that. AW: Unless you lived out there.…

Rob Stephens: What’d you think would be most needed in, for the neighborhood – we talked about this a lot, especially in the sessions with you and Brother Revels and Pastor Harrison – but, for the community around Saint Joseph, to really, you know in the midst of all the changes that are going on,…

Rev. Albert Williams is the minister at Staunton Memorial CME Church in Pittsboro. He is a lifetime resident of the area and was the first African American firefighter in Chapel Hill and a native son of St. Joseph CME. Mrs. Williams is also a lifetime resident and active member of Staunton…

In this short clip, Rev. Williams tells the story of his 1968 interview for a position with the Chapel Hill Fire Department. Albert Williams: I had to be interviewed by a panel of five personnel. They were five chiefs, and five officers from various departments around the state. One of the questions…

Rev. Albert Williams is the minister at Staunton Memorial CME Church in Pittsboro. He is a lifetime resident of the area and was the first African American firefighter in Chapel Hill. This interview was conducted as part of the Jackson Center’s local life history series. Topics include: childhood…

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.

Lavisha Williams grew up with her maternal grandparents as part of the household, and learned to cook watching them and her parents. Most of the foods and meals she grew up with had been passed down from her great-grandparents without cookbooks or precise recipes. Most of what she ate with her…

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.

Doris Wilson was born in 1936 in Robeson County, North Carolina and moved to Chapel Hill in the mid 1950s. She has lived in her same home on Church St. in Chapel Hill ever since. In the interview, she discusses the transition to Chapel Hill when she was college-aged and the first times she…

Paul Caldwell was the first African-American sergeant, lieutenant, and captain of University Police at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a long time resident of the Northside Neighborhood, and was a police officer for the University for 27 years, beginning as a patrol officer…

Created by Brentton Harrison when he was a member of the Marian Cheek Jackson’s inaugural season of its youth radio program, Fusion Youth Radio, and recipient of an award from PRX, this audio-documentary relies on oral histories to explore love of food and food as love.