Oral History Interview with Kathryn Cheek, March 27, 2003. Interview K-0203. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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Abstract
Kathryn Cheek, a white woman who was in elementary school when Chapel Hill schools desegregated, remembers desegregation and race relations during this stormy time. Her memories of desegregation are rather hazy—she says that as a child, she did not pay much attention to current events, and that as a white child, she had little stake in desegregation—but she recalls clearly her fear of a certain black girl who threatened her throughout junior high, and groups of black girls who attacked white girls in the bathrooms. Cheek's timeline is difficult to piece together, since she recalls desegregation during her very early years of school, but graduated in the early 1970s, just a few years after desegregation began.
Excerpts
Race is not a big deal to children
Tensions at Chapel Hill High School
Black girls victimize white girls in desegregated school
Little mingling between white and black students
Post-segregation reemergence of tensions
Black teachers and administrators at CHHS
Sit-ins cause tension for white students
Racial barriers persist
Tensions at Chapel Hill High School
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Subjects
School integration--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
African Americans--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Race relations--20th century
Cheek, Kathy, 1955-
Chapel Hill High School--Riot, 1969
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