discrimination

Freedom fighters Euyvonne Cotton, James Foushee, William Carter, Linda Brown, Keith Edwards, and Marion Phillips gathered upstairs at St. Joseph C.M.E. to talk about their experiences as young people in the freedom movement in Chapel Hill 1960-1964. Spurred by the recent publication of Courage in…

"...and the thing about it was that you got to know there were very few activists that really knew what was going on with the enforcement and the same thing very few enforcers know what’s going on with the activists so it just made everyone—all of us more knowledgeable when people were talking we…

This interview provides an overview of Black communities in Chapel Hill during Mason's life. He notes the consequences of having segregated communities and outdated infrastructures. His employment was at UNC Chapel Hill and he was employed at an early age at several local restaurants. He talks about…

"...we called it Tin Top, because all the houses that were on top had [roofs] with tin on it." - Donny "Hollywood" Riggsbee This interview provides insight into the background of Donny “Hollywood” Riggsbee, a long-term Northside neighborhood resident. He shares his experiences living with 12…

"People have got to stand up for themselves. Black or white. If you don’t stand up for yourself, ain’t nobody going to do it for you." - Edna Lyde Edna Lyde, born in 1928 in Darlington, SC, recounts how being Black impacted her experience within her family, at the workplace, and in her community in…

This interview is part of an oral history project called Southern Communities: Listening for a Change: Mighty Tigers--Oral HIstories of Chapel Hill's Lincoln High School. The interviewes were conducted from 2000-2001, by Bob Gilgor, with former teachers, staff, and students from Chapel Hill, N.C.'s…

"I would always look as I would walk down the corridors of the hall in Lincoln, and I could still hear some of the teachers speaking now. Giving guidance, giving direction, giving praise, and all the motivation we would need to excel as students, excel as athletes." - Fred Battle Fred Battle was…

"...if everyone in the student body at Chapel Hill couldn’t walk across Franklin Street and be able to eat anywhere they wanted, that that just simply wasn’t right." - Jim Wallace In this interview, Wallace speaks about Civil rights in Chapel Hill, resistance within the movement, and differences of…

"You can only know people if you’ve been in their shoes." - James Foushee Foushee speaks on growing up in Northside which includes his educational experiences, and his family overview. He goes into the dynamics of his relationship with his aunt. Furthermore, he talks about his relationship with his…

“I really think with children, it didn’t matter. It was the adults that were having problems.” (In reference to integration) - Katherine "Mama Kat" Council Ms. Council, fondly known as Mama Kat, grew up on a farm in Chapel Hill down Jones Ferry Road and has lived in various places in the area her…

"You couldn't have the expression of anger because you knew what this person was doing. Because your actions would not have come back on you, it would have come back on your parents." - Keith Edwards Edwards discusses her life in Carrboro and how she felt safe within the Black community but unsafe…

Keith Edwards has lived at the same address on McDade St. in Northside since she was born but now resides in a different house, built with support from a development grant that Chapel Hill received in the early 1970s. She became the first black female police officer at UNC in 1974 and later won a…

“I was a member of the Black Student Movement. It was like a year old when I got there so I was very active in that. I was the off-campus minister. We would go to the football games and not stand for the national anthem…as a form of protest.” - Mae McLendonr In this interview, Mae McLendon sits down…

“[Lincoln] was a school that you could go in and… no paper on the school campus. Hallway shines like new money all the time. You could drink out of the commode in the bathroom. And it was kept just that clean.” - Walter Durham Walter Durham discusses growing up as part of a large family on his…