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Oral History Interview with Terry Graham, March 22, 1999. Interview K-0434. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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Transcript Only (33 p.)
Abstract
Mooresville, NC, resident Terry Graham and taxi service operator describes his changing town in this interview. He worries that the town has "just outgrown itself" and is at risk of being swallowed up by nearby Charlotte; already, businesspeople from the racing industry are infiltrating the town, says Graham, and he worries about the effects of the closing of Burlington Mill on African Americans. The future for Mooresville as Graham sees it does not look bright for its lower-income residents. Perhaps the most significant change Graham describes is desegregation. He remembers a relatively uneventful process: though the white and black community disagreed about whether it was the white school or the black school that should undergo the conversion to an integrated facility, that and other questions were handled peacefully, even when Martin Luther King's assassination roiled the community. This interview offers a glimpse of a town in flux, sprawling toward an uncertain future.
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This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), a collection of over 4,000 interviews housed at the Southern Historical Collection.
Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.
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Last updated July 09, 2008