Contested space
Place

The Pines Restaurant

"As a kid I worked for The Pines down there, where they didn't let no Blacks come in there and eat, and my mommy and my daddy worked back there in the back. By the time I was a senior in high school, you had broken the rule where they could, Blacks could come there and eat."

- Thurman Couch

Located off NC-54 near Finley Golf Course, The Pines Restaurant was a segregated establishment and the site of several civil rights protests. Students and activists picketed fraternity and sorority events and protested segregation at the restaurant for many years. In 1964 UNC head basketball coach local pastor Bob Seymour of Binkley Baptist Church brought UNC head basketball coach Dean Smith and a Black UNC theology student to the restaurant. As Seymour told the Seattle Times in 1997, "We asked to be served and with Dean Smith at the door, they could not say no. That was the opening of the door of The Pines restaurant."

The Pines Restaurant
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Citation: “The Pines Restaurant,” From the Rock Wall, accessed October 10, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/places/the-pines-restaurant.

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