Home > Places > The Pines Restaurant
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
pinesRG.jpg
Pines1961chw.JPG
PinesJan1956CHW.JPG
CR12.jpg

Tags: ,

Citation: “The Pines Restaurant,” From the Rock Wall, accessed November 21, 2024, https://fromtherockwall.org/places/the-pines-restaurant.

To learn more...

Carlton's Rock Pile

"That was a very bad experience, because about four or five of us walked in, and Buddy Teagert was the leader, and he said 'sit on the floor..." And then the owner came over and said 'There’s dirt on the floor, I’m going to mop it'” and then he started to pour ammonia on people, hold their nose. So…

Carolina Theater

"Let's reflect back to Chapel Hill...that's where you had the Varsity Theater, Carolina Theater, in Chapel Hill. Then we had a Rialto Theater in Carrboro, on the main street. That was a Black theater. But here again, if it left scars on me, the scars are there for me, it's the fact that I would have…

Colonial Drugstore

"...we had Colonial Drugstore, the Rock Quarry, a number of other restaurants around here that we were able to desegregate. And what it caused, students, with the leadership of some adults like Hilliard Caldwell and some others, we began to demonstrate and ask the peoples for service at the lunch…

Dairy Bar

"Big John, who was known as the most racist drugstore guy, you know, you couldn't, he didn't allow blacks to come in there and do anything in his store. He had made it known that he was a racist, so when you walked down his street you had to look for him, when you walked past the drugstore you had…

 David Mason, Jr. - On Lincoln High School, school desegregation, and Northside

David Mason, Jr. a lifetime resident of Chapel Hill, is one of the leaders of the Lincoln High Alumni Association, an active member of St. Joseph CME, and a community historian. This interview, conducted as part of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History’s local Life Histories…

Lenoir Dining Hall

"I’ll never forget, down at the university when I worked in the food service, they were picketing in Lenoir Dining Hall, Chase Cafeteria, and the Student Union. We all had to group together because they didn’t want to pay us minimum wage, and the hours were so long. So, a guy came in from Georgia…

Memorial Hospital

"And that was 1952, when the hospital was opened. That's when jobs really became available. And then, if you got a job at the university hospital, twenty-five dollars a week, a hundred dollars a month. That was a long way from paying seven dollars a week." - Rebecca Clark "My grandmother didn't do…

 Picket of Chi Omega sorority at Pines Restaurant

When Chi Omega sorority at the ATO fraternity held banquets at the segregated Pines Restaurant, they were picketed by their fellow students.

 Thurman Couch - On his childhood, family, and school integration

This interview with Thurman Couch covers growing up in Chapel Hill during high school in the 1950-60s. He attended Lincoln High School before it was shut down in 1962, and then he attended Chapel Hill High School. Couch reflects on his lifestyle, neighborhood, family, religion, school, football…

Trailways Bus Station

"Me and my Mom used to go to the Trailways bus station to catch the bus to Durham ~ they had black, well it was "colored" back then, on one side and "white" on the other, and we had our place on the bus, we had our water fountains for coloreds and our bathrooms for coloreds, and we figured that's…

Varsity Theatre

"My dad, when we was growing up he worked at the Varsity Theatre as a janitor, and that gave us the opportunity to go and see some of the movies. As you know, back in the early '50s and the '60s and maybe up into the '70s, you know, you were not, African Americans was not allowed to go to the…

Watts Restaurant and Watts Motel

"We may have had a few incidents, and I remember at the Watts Motel, they would throw acid and pee out the window, embarrassing. But they just didn’t want us to integrate, that was the biggest problem." - Carol Brooks "They was picketing that place because they wouldn t let Blacks go in there and…
"We’re writing our own history, thank you!"

Ms. Esphur Foster

Want to add in?  Have a different view?  What do you think? Want to upload your own photos or documents?

History is not the past.  It’s the sense we make of the past now. Click below to RESPOND—and be part of making history today.

Respond
Back to the places page