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"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.
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O'Bryant Chapel AME Zion Church

O'Bryant Chapel AME Zion Church is located on Chapel Street in Chapel Hill, NC.

Orange County Training School

"The OCTS is over here, on Caldwell. And my mother’s father was one of the ones that laid the cornerstone, they were all masons. And so I went to what they called Northside, but was OCTS, from 1945 which was when I started...and so my class was the first class that went all the way through from the…

Pine Knolls

"There were people that walked [to Orange County Training School] from Knolls Development which was down off of Crest Street which is now Knolls Street and people walked from there, and people walked from Windy Hill...They had school buses but we were not allowed to ride school buses." - Mary…

Pottersfield (or Potter's Field)

"We were Potter's Field and Sunset. Students came mostly from Potter's Field and Sunset. So, whites were east of CaldwellS treet. Some of them were on the eastern...endof Caldwell Street. Airport Road. Out in that area. So I did not [pass white students heading to Chapel Hill High while walking to…

R.D. and Euzelle P. Smith Middle School

"They were saying, 'We want Black history courses in this school. We feel like everybody ought to have a knowledge for what the Blacks have contributed to this society.' And yet the textbooks don't even a carry a thing about it...I don't intend for that to happen at R.D. Smith and Euzelle B. Smith's…

Rangewood

Rangewood is a neighborhood located off NC 54 West in Chapel Hill, NC.

RENA Community Center

The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association (RENA) Community Center is located at 101 Edgar St. in Chapel Hill, NC. The Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood his a historically Black community from Homestead to Eubanks Roads north of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The community dates back to the 1700s and until…

Rock Wall

"A lot of people, when they would walk from Northside...walking back, they would just sit on the rock wall right there in front of [Willie Mae Patterson's] house. We used to sit there and just reflect on life and rest." - Keith Edwards, Civil Rights Story Circle interview At the front edge of the…

Rogers Road

"You’re driven by just wanting to make the community, in a way, like what you had. Where they have a place, a physical place, where there’s beauty around them, you know, environmental beauty, where they’re safe...I want young people to have the same sense of security that we had ."
- Minister…

Scarborough & Hargett Celebration of Life Center, Inc.

"Scarborough owned Scarborough Funeral Home in Durham. And they used to have a funeral home in Chapel Hill, too, before they moved to Durham. They had them in both places." - Doug Clark, Sr. Scarborough & Hargett Celebration of Life Center, Inc. began in Kinston, NC in 1871 when grocer J.C.…

Second Baptist Church

Second Baptist Church is located at 114 S. Graham Street in Chapel Hill, NC.

St. Joseph C.M.E. Church

St. Joseph C.M.E. Church, located at 510 W. Rosemary in Chapel Hill, was founded in 1898. Its mother church was Hamlet Chapel CME Church, Pittsboro, NC and it started as Cotton Chapel C.M.E Church (named for the late Mr. Henry Cotton, a church founder). Pastor Troy Harrison at St. Joseph helped…

St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church

First imagined by worshippers of Black and Native American descent who gathered to worship under a grape vine arbor on December 29, 1864, St. Paul A.M.E. Church was accepted into the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1870. Its members built the first church, a log cabin, on Merritt Mill Road.…

Staunton Memorial CME Church

Staunton Memorial CME Church is located at 230 Credle Street in Pittsboro, NC.

Sutton's Drug Store

"Most of the news that came out of that was the kind of word of mouth. You know, we're going to march in front of Sutton's today and the word would just kind of come, and after it was over-. I marched in some of these places." - Stanley Vickers Sutton's Drug Store opened in the Strowd Building at…

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…

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"There would not be a University if there had not been the Blacks in this community to help build the University." - Kathy Atwater The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was chartered in 1789 and began enrolling students in 1795. Through the mid-19th century, enslaved Black people on lease…

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Initially established as a women's college, the State Normal and Industrial School opened in 1892. In 1919 it was renamed the North Carolina College for Women and in 1932 it was renamed the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina. Men were first admitted in 1963, when it became the…

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…

Villa Teo

"I started working part time at the last restaurant that the Danzigers had, called the Villa Teo. The Villa Teo is down on what we call Stroud Hill...And the Villa Teo was a beautiful place...it was the type of place where you would want to take your girl on a nice date." - David Mason Originally…