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Potter's Field

 Alexandra Odum, William Gattis, and Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On sources (clip)

Alexandra Odum: The last question I have, when a lot of the original pages when they are written by students, they are looking at things like things like from the Rock Wall, They are looking at different digital newspapers, To some extent they are looking at historical resources, so I guess what are…

 Dr. Courtney Rivard - Questions (clip)

Dr. Courtney Rivard: So I think this is helping us figure out how to write about the boundaries because they love the maps in Wikipedia. The second is about timeline, so that’s the other thing that they really would like. And you clearly and very poignantly pointed out the misrepresentation, which…

 Dr. Courtney Rivard and William Gattis - On compassion (clip)

Courtney Rivard (CR): Mr. Gattis, you make me think about the ways in which a fear that I have about how knowledge is getting formed today, and in the future, right? If Wikipedia is gonna prevent us from using these direct experiences because it’s about secondary sources, well that’s fine, it’s an…

 Dr. Courtney Rivard and William Gattis - On glossing over history (clip)

Courtney Rivard (CR): The point about glossing over is about teaching the students how to write a little more, with more intention. So, this is very helpful to hear especially Sara is getting ready to teach. I think that it might be useful to hear this and play it for your students in class. It’s a…

 Edwin Caldwell, Jr. - On his family history, activism, and career

"So Chapel Hill, whatever you want to believe, wasn’t as progressive as some people may think." - Edwin Caldwell, Jr. This interview is part of a group of interviews conducted by Susan Simone exploring the lives of various members of the Northside community. In this 2-part interview, Edwin Caldwell,…

 Kathy Atwater - On pottage field (clip)

Kathy Atwater (KA): Can I add too, and just hearing this, because growing up, I did not know that this was Pottersfield. The parents called it Pottage, Pottage Field which had a different connotation for me growing up because “pottage field,” and like Brother Williams said, “potter’s field”…

 Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On Neighborhoods

Pat Jackson: And here, in the establishment and commemorating the area you have Pottersfield which we knew was that area. You have Mrs. Jackson living as a resident in Pottersfield. She was not. She is a resident of Chapel Hill and she grew up on Merritt Mill Road in the house that they had as the…

 Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On schools (clip)

Patricia Jackson: We’re at the Lincoln High School Students’ page and where it says, “Later in 1962, Lincoln High School was dissolved as younger Pottersfield children began to attend Frank Porter Graham Elementary School, while older students were integrated into Chapel Hill High School.” That’s…

 Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On the Janitorial Association (clip)

Patricia “Pat” Jackson: And I guess during the Janitorial Association …yeah, 1937 … Mrs. Jackson’s father was the first President of the Janitorial Association and he was working at the University living on Merritt Mill, which was all…and making sure that people had work, could get work, and could…

 Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On the timeline (clip)

Pat Jackson: Well if you, For the chunking up, I guess, what I’m thinking and Mr. Gattis, Kathy, you know, hear me out, if we’re listening, and want people to know about the Potter’s Field, what it really was,then it has to be stated what the proper narrative of what it was, what it is now, how it…

 Patricia "Pat" Jackson and Others - Conclusion (clip)

Dr. Courtney Rivard (CR): Pat, did you want add some other things? Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): I’m just going to thank you guys for these pages because I’m going to get some notes from my elders, some of the people that could not be here to, you know, help with getting the information that we need…

 Patricia "Pat" Jackson and William Gattis - On Lincoln High (clip)

William Gattis (WG): We’re talking about 1966, because that’s when–well beginning around 1964 is when some of us began to enter the Chapel Hill High System. Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): This says Lincoln High School in 1962, and see Lincoln High School in 1962 was Lincoln High School. Didn’t have…

 Patricia "Pat" Jackson and William Gattis - On the cement pile (clip)

Kathy Atwater (KA): And, now it’s gone. No more Windy Hill, Pat Jackson (PJ): No more Windy Hill. KA: All the Black neighborhoods are gone. William Gattis (WG): And we didn’t even get to Columbia Street because Church Street was a street that separated us–on one side White and on the other side…

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 Caldwell Street. Some of them were on the eastern...end of Caldwell Street. Airport Road. Out in that area. So I did not [pass white students heading to Chapel Hill High while walking to…

 Virginia Carson - On fringes (clip)

Virginia Carson: I just want to add one thing. Hudson [Vaughan] told me that the town border between Chapel Hill and Carrboro was drawn in the Reconstruction Era, but carefully drawn so there weren’t too many Black folks in either town, because that would dilute the voting base from one or the…

 Virginia Carson, Pat Jackson, and William Gattis - On Reconstruction (clip)

Virginia Carson (VC): Some piece of this also goes back to Reconstruction. The church archives at Chapel of the Cross, there were free people of color in Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill was a really small place and the University, but there were free people of color who were skilled workers of one kind or…

 William Gattis - How far we have come (clip)

William Gattis: And it did not stop in the ‘50s. We experienced–we are still experiencing part of the fallout, but this went on through the ‘60s. The students from Lincoln High School, this was beginning in 1962 through ‘64, we’re talking about teenagers. And it has also been said that…

 William Gattis - Lift Every Voice and Sing (clip)

William Gattis (WG): If you really want to know Black history, take the time to sometime read “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Around 1910 it was written for children to tell them about their history. And if you go line for line, you will read about the struggle and I’m often surprised that even now we……

 William Gattis - Not the best place (clip)

William Gattis: And we talk about these people as though they were trained university workers. No, if the university is the big employer, it’s not only the biggest employer of Black people but white people as well. It is the emerald place, the invisible kingdom, and it is part of the structure, the…

 William Gattis - On free people of color (clip)

William Gattis: I don’t know how you grade being hated, being enslaved. We get the Emancipation Proclamation. You get the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment and then after the 1870’s is when you start getting the pushback against a lot of things. For example, you could be in Chapel Hill, maybe live in these…

 William Gattis - On how lines were drawn (clip)

William Gattis (WG): Now, the date that we are talking about is around 1851… Dr. Courtney Rivard: Yeah, let’s see if we can get a better timeline than what we have here. WG: ... and the reason why I am saying that is that this is when these lines were drawn. It is even documented. Merritt Mill Road…

 William Gattis - On segregated community (clip)

William Gattis: And what we have to understand [is] that during this time we have embraced – we have embellished – we have been complicit – in relegating people to a certain area, [and] making sure that they didn’t have the right tools to live. Now, if you can call 25 dollars a week–maybe– as an…

 William Gattis - On segregation and boundaries (clip)

William Gattis: If we historically want to find out, and this is my understanding: it was Northside with the adopted name Potter’s Field, because in the Bible, Potter’s Field was where we had the dead bodies. And the whole idea is we can’t have you all among us, so we’re going to put you on the…

 William Gattis - On the loss of innocence (clip)

William Gattis: And as a kid, the other part to this puzzle is, and a lot of older people can attest to this, you actually learn as a child where you can go and be safe and not harmed. And you know at the bus station, you’re gonna go downstairs to use vending machines. And one of the sisters at St.…

 William Gattis - On violence (clip)

William Gattis: White men thought it was their point of duty to cross over into Northside or Pottersfield to rape Black women and kill Black men and then go back to the other side of town and not have to pay a price for that balance. And that is why, as we move along, parents would tell us: “There…

 William Gattis - On your own narrative (clip)

William Gattis: But the upshot of the whole thing is that you get to write your own narrative and that’s why you have the walls. And I mentioned this before. You have Windy Hill is a wall of your house. Northside is a wall of your house, or Potter’s Field. Tin Top is one of the sides of your house.…

 William Gattis - Reading the introduction (clip)

Patricia “Pat” Jackson: …now where is this place? William Gattis: (Reading from the Wikipedia entry in italics) Pottersfield, also called Pottersville, was a large historically Black neighborhood located in downtown Chapel Hill–No way!–downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It was originally built…

 William Gattis and Dr. Courtney Rivard - On Windy Hill (clip)

Dr. Courtney Rivard (CR): May ask a question because I want to think how we are going to be able write this in the Wikipedia and I just want to start by saying thank you. Thank you. Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): Now shut up. [Laughter] CR: No, actually just the opposite. There’s some translational…

 William Gattis and Patricia "Pat" Jackson - Glossing over (clip)

William Gattis (WG): Unfortunately, Katherine, the whole premise on which it starts is wrong. For example, it gives a more modern-day version of what happened. If you can imagine the 1865 Emancipation Proclamation in the Chapel Hill Area. For example, this starts off as… Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ):…

 William Gattis and Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On a timeline (clip)

Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): So, do you have the time frame better? Dr. Courtney Rivard (CR): So I have 1865-1870 when reconstruction began and then, and, I don’t know if this is too much time, 1865 to 1920, the birth of … the solidification of Jim Crow, then 1920 to 1950? William Gattis (WG): If I…

 William Gattis and Patricia "Pat" Jackson - On neighborhoods (clip)

Alexandra Odom (AD): And so how far back would you go? I think, Mr. Gattis, you said something about 1850. What is the earliest that… and I know we are talking about reconstruction and we’re talking about 1855 and post-emancipation, so when we talk about Potters Field, where exactly should that…