Doug Clark

Doug Clark: Friday and Saturday all Black kids on Friday and Saturday- you couldn’t go to the movies when you were young in the middle of the week- Friday and Saturday, Friday mainly, you could go to the movies. You didn’t want to get a punishment because a punishment meant you can’t go to the movies. They had chapter pictures at the movies on Fridays and Saturdays, all the kids wanted to go because they had chapter pictures--

Bob Gilgor: Serials?

DC: Yeah, uh-huh, with Chambell and Tarzan, or it used to be way back.

BG: What was the name of the movies?

DC: Hollywood Theater.

BG: All Black?

DC: It was all Black, owned by whites. Ok, and next to it though, they had a place- Mr. Jeff Rashee and his wife, I can’t think of her name- they had a place next to it, it was like a soda bar. You know, they sold soda and candies and all that. That’s where all the kids communicated after basketball practices and all, that’s where you went- at night- because Hollywood Grill and M&M Grill, that was more for the older guys because they were selling beer, but this place didn’t sell beer. That’s where everyone would congregate after basketball games, after football games, and all, at the theater which was right next door to Rashee’s. Okay, but later on, Ben Baldwin’s- the Baldwins- they ran this place, and this is our place, with our soda shop for hot dogs, hamburgers, ice cream, and stuff like this- right on Franklin Street, right on the Carrboro line. This was your social life. Your parents preferred for you to go to the movies on Friday night because on Sunday they wanted you to go to church.

Doug Clark describes attending a holiday party at a UNC fraternity where he got the idea to start his band, which eventually became Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts.

To hear more from Doug Clark, listen to his full oral history "Doug Clark, Sr. - On growing up in Chapel Hill and high school."

Doug Clark, Sr., a musician, was born in Chapel Hill in 1936, where he lived in a close-knit Black neighborhood and attended Orange County Training School, which became Lincoln High School. He reflects on his family life and experiences growing up, such as seeing lines of Black children walk to school, going to church and community shops, playing sports, and observing the hard-working parents in the neighborhood. He emphasizes how much he enjoyed growing up in Chapel Hill and seeing the changes in cities and technology over time. He discusses how integration manifested in his neighborhood, shops, and schools. He remembers playing the drums for his high school band and forming his own all-Black band outside of school, where he booked gigs around Chapel Hill before a word-of-mouth process led him to play at universities and events across the country.

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.