Virginia Jones

This interview is part of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center’s Life History Series. Ms. Virginia has grown up in Chapel Hill and lived here her entire life. She was born on Mitchell Lane. She is the 10th of 10 children. Her mother worked at UNC at Chase Hall and her father worked within landscaping. She attended Northside Elementary, Gabby Phillips Middle School, and Chapel Hill High School during their desegregation processes. She attended college at NCCU and majored in Spanish. She continued on to enroll into UNC Chapel Hill’s Spanish master’s program, in which she was the only African American. She eventually left and returned to NCCU to get her masters in Library Sciences. Ms. Virginia decided to stay and work as a librarian and professor here for over 40 years. During this time, Ms. Virginia raised two children, and was a caretaker for her aunt, mother, and husband before they all passed for variable reasons. She remains in Northside, because after her aunt’s death she decided that she wanted to keep the house, later to honor her aunt’s death. Ms. Virginia absolutely loves her two properties, and will stop at absolutely nothing that will be in her way.