Doris Wilson

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 encountered racial segregation and hostility in the town, her college education at Fort Valley St., her love of children and her desire early on to become a childhood educator, her work as a media specialist in different North Carolina schools and the transition to working in Carrboro Early School, her faith and the importance of church in her life, her relationship with her parents, and her time growing up in a rural, tight-knit community in Robeson County. She recalls key details of her early experiences with race and how she did not encounter the realities of racial inequality until she reached Chapel Hill. She also reflects on her early positions in childhood education, working in newly integrated schools in Chatham County and Carrboro. She shares memories of her late husband, Riley Wilson, and their adopted child Christie Britton. Furthermore, she includes details of her first awards as an educator and the acknowledgement she received for educating young children as well as becoming a validator for educators in North Carolina. The interview concludes with discussions of education between the interviewer and interviewee, and with Ms. Wilson sharing her church life at First Baptist and how her faith has shaped the way she has taken her daughter and grandchildren into her home.