Segregation in Mooresville
Graham remembers segregated Mooresville, a place where blacks ordered food to go at whites-only restaurants and were restricted to the balcony of the local movie theater.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Terry Graham, March 22, 1999. Interview K-0434. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
So at that time, were all the
restaurants in Mooresville pretty much segregated?
- TERRY GRAHAM:
-
Yeah, they were all segregregated. Most of them had a little section
where the black could go and be served, yeah, and had one or two seats
where they could sit down, but not no whole lot that … They
could get sandwiches and carryout.
- AMANDA COVINGTON:
-
What about at the movies?
- TERRY GRAHAM:
-
At the movies?
- AMANDA COVINGTON:
-
Uh-huh.
- TERRY GRAHAM:
-
Yeah, the movies were segregated. We were upstairs at the movies - up in
the balcony.
- AMANDA COVINGTON:
-
Okay. I was talking to a white fellow who's a principal now
and he said that remembers when they first stopped separating that, he
says, a lot of the white people wanted to go sit up in the balcony too
because they liked being able to sit up there.
- TERRY GRAHAM:
-
Uh-huh.
