Burnice Hackney

BG: Did you feel that you were treated the same as a student as the white teachers as the whites were treated when you went Chapel Hill High in '66?

BH: I don't have a recollection of being treated differently, it's just maybe a sense of identifying with their teacher or the teacher identifying with me. Basically, I went to a class and I tried to grasp what was being disseminated and tried to score as well as I could on the tests and that was it. There was no attachment beyond that as far as myself. I can't imagine and I could even be a minority among the blacks, I can't imagine the whites taking a sullen approach, it had to be more of an identification there. They probably knew the teachers prior to that particular time but I didn't really identify with them and I don't feel that they identified with me. I don't have a bad memory of a particular teacher of just this person being a racist. Racism still was something that wasn't really dealt with on a personal level that much. It was more like a societal type thing that certain things had to change within society and not this particular individual has got to change. I didn't really have a racial problem with any of the teachers that I was aware of at that time.

BG: How about with the white students, was there verbal taunting or physical abuse that you saw or felt?

BH: There was some but I gathered in '66 and '67 it was mainly everybody just kept their distance. We were here but you go your way and I'll go mine. It was more mutual respect or mutual disrespect. There were a few individuals, a few confrontations, very few that occurred of a racial nature. But then later on tensions did develop up to a higher level in subsequent years.

BG: When you went to Chapel Hill High, your Coach Peerman was now the assistant head coach and your principal was the assistant principal and the core curriculum teachers were almost all white, was this something that was noticed or discussed among the black students?

BH: Of course, even had it not been discussed, that's like an object lesson, you see that this is how it's going to be. You bring me in but I want to be second fiddle and so that was not a lesson that anybody wanted to learn but it was very obvious that this is the way that things are played out. I think that it may have even been more noticeable with Coach Peerman in that he had been so successful that it didn't seem to be a question that qualification could possibly have been the criteria. In some of the other cases, maybe who knows? Some of those other teachers may have been from better programs, some of the white teachers maybe their high academic credentials may have been better, not to say that they were more skilled teachers, but I certainly will find it hard to believe that anybody could be a better principal than Mr. McDougle so I guess we could see it there also. So that was a good quick lesson that we did learn in terms of reality that hey, you still have got to work harder at whatever you do. You still might come in second.

BG: You had mentioned that you learned either late in the school term or during the summer that you were going to go to Chapel Hill High and you had some feelings about that that were just expressed to me while we were changing the tapes.

BH: Right. My personal preference of course being a senior would have been to remain at Lincoln and given all the experiences that I've had at Lincoln I had identified and bonded with Lincoln. I feel that many of the other students felt the same way, but however the net result is that we were told that the majority-at least this is my recollection—that the majority of students preferred to go ahead and go with the merger because of the fact that the resources were not going to be devoted to Lincoln that would be adequate or equal to what were available at Chapel Hill High. As I said, I'm relying on my recollection, which the event was so stressful that I can't really say with one hundred percent confidence that my recollection of this is accurate. It was very, very stressful. It was a point in my life, in our lives, that would change things for the rest of our lives. You're talking about not only integration but you're talking about losing an institution that had been a vitally important integral to the community for so many years. You did that with the hope that you would gain better resources and that the future generations would be better served in terms of education, but you knew that you were losing at that time. So as I said, it was a very stressful situation. My recollection is that we were told the majority of students did opt for the merger.

BG: Was there some discussion as to whether the merger would be delayed for a year and that Chapel Hill High School would be populated the first year just by white students?

BH: I can't recall specifically, but there was great consideration given to our concerns as seniors that we would not be allowed to finish our final year at Lincoln. I don't know if enough weight was given to that to consider delaying the process. That's very doubtful. I can't imagine that would have weighed that heavily in the process.

BG: What were your feelings when you went to Chapel Hill High School for your senior year?

BH: Well, I've never been one to really cry over spilled milk but you have your regrets. As I say, we knew what we were losing, but we didn't know what we would gain so you try to keep hope alive. We went in and even with athletics we were relatively successful. Chapel Hill was more successful than they had been in the past. With the team, I think the team was probably seventy-five to eighty-five percent black that first year. In that situation, I guess they lost a lot that year in terms of participation, that is, the prior members of the previous Chapel Hill team. You go in and once the decision has been made our teachers started trying to prepare us to make the best of the situation. We also were seniors and so we knew that there would be differences. There was a sense that the academics were accelerated and you had a very short period of time to make the adjustment. As a senior, you still wanted to graduate but there was a sense that certain of the classes would be on a higher level than they had been previously. Frankly, I found this to be the case with certain ones, and it's the same today. Chapel Hill is more of a first year college level in terms of their presentation. There was a lot of apprehension but you also had hope. You could see that. I guess the caveat is that not only was Chapel Hill being integrated but also the entire society was being integrated and so this was just the beginning of what was it, the Great Society. There were changes being made everywhere and there was more access and you had more opportunities and certainly college and so your future education was a concern.

BG: What was your feeling about not having your senior year at Lincoln? Were you angry at that or you just accepted is my take on it from what you just said?

BH: Well, you can sometimes read the handwriting on the wall and when you have the opportunity of doing that then your best option in my opinion is to make the best of the situation. I wouldn't say anger although anger was a part of the process that we went through, the emotional pain was there, but my main concern was to get through that senior year and to graduate and to go ahead and proceed with what the future had for me.

BG: Were there differences in how you saw the teachers from Lincoln to Chapel Hill High?

BH: Well, obviously you couldn't have a more different transition, you going from an all black situation basically to an all white situation, which is a little ironic in that when I went to college I went back to a predominately black college. That's life, you go through different situations and you have to be prepared to experience different environments, but certainly in a sense you didn't identify with whites and you had very little-. My contacts with whites to that point had been very limited. It was a big difference with the students as well as the teachers; you just didn't identify overnight with another race group. After going to a black college, I then had the opportunity to return back to UNC at Chapel Hill so I had to make the transition again. That's just the way life is, you have to go through different situations and you have to deal with different people.

BG: Were there any other things about the football team that you remember that you want to share? 

BH: Mainly Coach Peerman the team-. Actually Coach Bradshaw was there and went on to great success. He's also a member of the Hall of Fame. He was there before I got there and before Coach Peerman, but the biggest thing that I remember about the football team was the winning success and Coach Peerman and how strong of an individual he was. He took a personal interest in me, and the principles that he espoused was the biggest thing that I remember about the football team. 

BG: What are some of those principals that you remember he espoused? 

BH: Well, he had so many, so many principles and sayings and what have you. I think he once quoted that if you want to kill a gnat that you use a sledgehammer. He just really wanted each individual to get every ounce of their potential that they had within them. Even though I wasn't a starter, I was a little on the lightweight side. He always seemed to take a personal interest in me because I was always determined and no matter what the challenge, I would attempt to meet the challenge, at least meet it. That was the thing that I got from him is that you give it all you've got and you don't worry about things after that. 

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.