Explore Our Neighborhoods

"It takes a strong neighborhood to build a town. You’ve got to take it one neighborhood at a time. And I see that happening around here."
Antonio Vinson

Explore the history of Black communities in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC. Meet our neighbors through oral history interviews, images, and more. Share your own story.
SEARCH BY NAME

Terrell’s Creek Missionary Baptist Church

Terrell’s Creek Missionary Baptist Church is located on Old Greensboro Road in Chapel Hill, NC.

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…

The Ramshead Rathskeller

"The Danzigers had four restaurants: the Ranch House, the Rathskeller, the Zoom Zoom, and the Villa Teo...The Rathskeller was the first place in North Carolina, I believe — I know in Chapel Hill—that had pizza...Very first place. The Rathskeller employed a lot of Black people." -David Mason, Jr. The…

Tin Can

"Sometimes the [Lincoln High School basketball] coaches would take the boys to a gym down on UNC campus to play...the Tin Can. They would take them down to practice. They never played a game there. All the games were played over here in our auditorium." - Mary Norwood Jones The Tin Can on the UNC…

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…