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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0538, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Nate Davis discusses being among the first African American students to integrate public schools in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He describes a happy childhood, though one circumscribed by segregation, and an experience in integrated schools so unpleasant that he was truant for months on end. Segregation made Davis and his peers particularly dependent on black community institutions to maintain healthy social and emotional lives. One of these institutions was the Hargraves Community Center, where Davis spent, and apparently still spends, a great deal of time. This interview offers a look at the discomfort that many African Americans felt when they entered an integrated environment.
Segregation and integration caused difficulties in the life of this African American student.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is February the 6th in the year 2001,and this is Bob Gilgor interviewing Nate Davis at the Hargraves Center. Good morning, Nate.
Good morning.
I appreciate your taking the time to let me interview you, and I'll start with just a broad question about, what was it like for you growing up here in Chapel Hill?
Well I think, you know, I think I had a pretty good life growing up in the Chapel Hill community, um, I was, I grew up off Church Street on School Lane, between, it was an apartment complex between School Lane and Caldwell Street extension right up from Northside Elementary School. I could look out my bedroom window and see the school, so I didn't have far to walk to school, but it, to me it was a good experience, you know, growing up in that community. I attended Northside Elementary School. We moved from the area probably when I was in the sixth grade.
Did you grow up with both of your parents?
Yes, grew up with both my parents. My father passed away about five years ago. My father moved here to North Carolina from South Carolina, I think probably in the late '30s, early '40s. My mom is from this area, she was a Trice. She's related to the Markham and Trice families in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area, so she grew up in this area. And at some point I'm saying they met at Northside Elementary School, which was Orange County Training School at that time, and they was married in 1946 I think it was, '46 or '47.
Do you have brothers and sisters, Nate?
I have five brothers and four sisters.
Ooh, big family!
Yeah, a real big family.
Are they still here in the area?
Um, yeah all of them are still in the area, except I have one brother that lives in Chatham County—Siler City—but my other eight brothers and sisters live in this area.
And where did you fit into that group?
I was the third oldest, I had two older brothers. We did have one
brother, oldest one, he passed away at birth. Actually not at birth but
very young, you know, 3 or
What did your mom and dad do for a living?
Well my mom, with that many kids it's kind of hard to get away from the house and work a lot, so my mom kind of, you know, stayed at home and raised us. My dad, when we was growing up he worked at the Varsity Theatre as a janitor, and that gave us the opportunity to go and see some of the movies. As you know, back in the early '50s and the '60s and maybe up into the '70s, you know, you were not, African Americans was not allowed to go the movies. So we did have an advantage by going with my dad to work sometimes, to go in and watch some of the movies. I think dad probably worked there until I was abut 11 or 12 years old, then he started working at one of the fraternity houses in Chapel Hill, and he worked here until he retired from that, and then he did odd jobs. My dad was, he was pretty, not sick, but he was sick a lot. He was a diabetic, and I don't remember the exact year, but at some point in time both his legs was amputated because of that, and that's something that runs in my family. But he worked up until the time, probably until the year he passed away, even with both his legs amputated. He worked at the Chapel Hill Tennis Club maintaining the tennis courts for a long time. So yeah, both my parents was around, and my mom, she did do some work every once in a while. She worked at the Carolina Inn as a maid, and you know, odd jobs working in different homes and things like that.
Did she take laundry in, did she do ironing, things like that, or no?
No, no, she didn't.
She just worked out of the house?
Yeah, out of the house when she did work.
You mentioned that your dad worked at the Varsity Theatre and that African Americans couldn't get in there. Did some of the movie houses allow African Americans to come in and stay in the balcony?
Not to my knowledge. You know, we went with my dad when he went to work and he would turn the movies on. Never attempted to go when the movie was open to the general public, you know.
So you got to see the movies as a private showing?
Yeah, kind of like a private showing.
Who was the boss in your house?
Who was the boss in my house? Um, my mom was. She kind of ran things, ran the house, 'cause my dad was away working and things, so my mom would get us up to get ready for school and prepare meals and things like that.
Can you tell me about the community in which you lived? Did you have relatives around; did you know your neighbors?
Yeah, we knew all our neighbors. We didn't have that many relatives that lived in the neighborhood where I lived, but you know, back then everyone was kin, you know. Like I say it was a duplex, and we lived on one side and the Wilsons lived on the other side, and down across the street in front of us Mr. Foushee, Ernest Foushee lived in that apartment. As a matter of fact we stayed in that apartment before we moved across the street to the apartment on School Lane. And then there was Miss Ethel Bynum who lived next door to our duplex and had this beautiful flower garden and we would, all the kids would be outside playing ball, and if a ball went in her flower garden, you know, sometimes she would give them back and sometimes she wouldn't. So I do know that Miss Ethel had accumulated a number of softballs and baseballs over the years because they had went into her flower gardens, and so, but we knew everyone that lived in the community, yeah. Where we grew up at it was like a small family because we went to each others' houses and things like that.
Did you play in the streets, or did you play in front of the school?
Well you know, there is a ballfield over at Northside. We played on that ballfield. Also there's a little side street which was School Lane, between the houses we played, you know, kickball and things like that , and we had our own bases because there were some rocks, those big old rocks are still there. So those rocks were our bases. And also we played on Caldwell Street, that was the main street. I remember in the summertime a truck would come by to water the road; we would run alongside the truck and get wet and things like that. And also it was an opportunity for us to go into Mr. Wilson Caldwell and Mr. R.D. Smith, and I think Mr. R.D.'s mother lived on the street also, and she was a Cub Scout leader, so, but they had the apple trees and pear trees and all that stuff, so we would go and climb the trees and get apples and pears and peaches and things like that.
You have a big smile on your face. Sounds like it was a happy time for you.
It was, you know it was. And we went swimming down at the catfish, I don't know if you know, that's Umstead, what's now Umstead Park.
And you swam down there?
And that's where we still swimming, we had our own swim hole. There was a pool at Umstead, the Exchange Club pool. We were not allowed to go into that pool but you know we had our . . .
You got in in the creek down there?
Oh yeah, yeah. We went swimming in the creek. Unfortunately, you know, a lot of us went swimming but I never did learn how to swim that well. But we had fun, we would go down and catch the tadpoles and go swimming and things like that.
What would happen if there was an argument or some misbehavior when you were out playing ball? How would that be handled?
It all depended on whether we were losing or winning you know [laughs]
Did you ever have any of the neighbors keeping an eye on you?
All the neighbors.
All the neighbors. Would they ever come out and discipline you?
Oh yeah, yeah. You had people like Miss Ethel Bynum, Mr. [unclear]
So what would happen if there was a problem then that was seen by Mr. Foushee or Mr. Bynum or one of the other people?
You'd get a whipping and then they'd take you home and you'd get another whipping. That's the way it was.
What was a whipping like?
All depends. All depends what you got into. You know, all depends whether your parents made you go outside and get your own switch, all depends whether you tried to hold the switch and break it, all depends whether you tried to crawl under the bed, and all depends whether you tried to say 'oh mama you done hit me in my eye ,' or whether—it all depends.
Say an average, run-of-the-mill misdemeanor with another child.
Um, well it, you know, they didn't try to hurt you. They were whipping and we were understanding why they was whipping us and what was going on.
They would take a switch, and how many whacks would you get with the switch?
Then again it all depends on whether you tried to grab the switch, or you tried to break the switch, or what size the switch was when you went outside to get it. Now if your parents say you go get you a switch so you can get your whipping, and you come back with something small, they may go get something bigger, you know. It was not what people would consider abuse.
That's I guess what I'm getting at, I mean—
No, I mean we did get punished. You know we did get punished and you did get your whippings.
Was it more like three or 4 whacks, or was it 20 whacks?
Oh no, it wasn't a beating.
It wasn't a beating.
It wasn't a beating . It was not a beating, you know, maybe about 3 or 4. The same in school, if you did something wrong you got the yardstick, you know, you got 3 or 4 licks.
So you, I've had some people say to me that today it might be considered child abuse, but in your experience—
No, I think the worst part about it was when you're in the neighborhood, especially in the summertime your doors and windows gonna be open, the worst part about it is trying not to cry because you know everybody's outside listening. And you know, that's when you really got in a fight, after you got a whipping, you know, you're angry and you're upset, but you can't say or do anything to your mom, so you go outside and the guys are gonna get on you so you gonna jump on them, you know, but um, it was not abuse, you know.
And the neighbors could hit you with a switch also, if they saw any misbehavior?
Yeah some of them could, yeah.
Did you ever end up talking back to the neighbors?
Oh no, uh-uh, no you didn't talk back. No, you respect for them, they're someone that was not there to harm you ,they were people that was there to look out for you and take care of you.
And the children understood that.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you feel that your neighbors loved you, trusted you, were wary of you? Did you have feelings about how your neighbors saw you?
They were there to take care of us. You know, we were like part of their family like I said, back then you know in the neighborhood, the community was just one big family. And you know, our parents knew that they was going to take care of us, you know.
What kind of an apartment did you live in?
What kind of an apartment did I live in.
You've got a lot of kids here, you know.
Okay, we had the kitchen, and then the hallway, and the bathroom, and the bedroom, and then a living room.
You had one bedroom?
We had one bedroom up to a point, and then I think the landlord added another bedroom on some years later. But it was not that many kids at that time. Let's see, my brother Bob, my brother Tom, myself, and my sister Willie May, yeah I remember Willie May 'cause she was the baby, 'cause I remember one night myself, Bob and Tom was all in the kitchen area with Willie May, and she was in the baby stroller and we saw this big rat run across the floor, and we all ran out and left her. So there was like four of us back then living in that apartment..
So you moved when you were like in 6th grade to Merritt Mill Road near the new high school, or where the new high school would be.
Yeah, we moved to Merritt Mill Road.
Or where the new high school was at that time.
Yeah, uh-huh.
Did you buy a house there?
Yeah, we did, we did. We actually purchased a house, my grandparents, they lived there, and they had another house built and we moved in to the house that they lived in.
And what kind of house was that then?
It was um, we had two bedrooms then! We had um, you know back then everybody had a living room, they had a pull-out couch, and so some people did sleep on the pull-out couch, so we had three bedrooms.
You had a lot of togetherness there, with how many kids? Eight, or nine?
I'm trying to think, my brother, I think my sister Helen and my brother Kenny may have been born later on when we moved to Rangewood, out on 54 West when my mother lives now, but it was at least eight.
Did you feel poor?
No we didn't, we were, but we didn't, because we had all the love.
[portion of interview [Portion of interview excised.]
So people in the community would just give things to—
I'm not saying everybody. There was some people, especially Mr. Bynum and Susie Weaver, you know, he gave everything. I think no one would, everyone knew that he gave to people but I don't think no one would ever really realize how much he did give.
What did he do for a living?
Um, he was owner of a little convenience store down on Brooks Street and also he owned the funeral home in Chapel Hill.
And what about Susie Weaver?
Miss Susie was in the funeral business with him and she also had a radio program, a gospel program on Sundays, and I think she was a beautician. I think she was a beautician
And she, she also worked at the funeral home?
Uh-huh.
Did she own it?
Mr. Bynum owned it. It was the Bynum Weaver Funeral Home.
So the two of them owned it. Bynum Weaver Funeral Home. Or you mean her name was—
Oh his name was Bynum Weaver, his first name was Bynum.
I see.
Yeah.
So these two people were very giving. At least these two.
Yeah, uh-huh.
Did you feel that was common in the African American community when you were growing up?
Oh yeah, back then you took care of each other, you know, you took care of your family. And family back then didn't necessarily have to mean that you were blood kin. You know, someone you knew, someone you cared for, someone in the community, you know, that was family.
And this was the '50s and '60s that you're talking abou?
Yeah, uh-huh.
Would you say there was much of a middle class in the Potter's Field or Northside community at that time among the blacks, the African Americans?
I think it really depends on what you're looking at as far as being
middle class. I don't know if you're looking at financially or
spiritually or what. Back then everybody went to church and everything.
But yeah, we didn't feel poor. People may have looked at certain people
and said well they're poor, they don't have, yeah, I think some people
felt like that they was a little bit better or had more than other
people, you know. [Portion of interview excised.]
Yeah, my grandmom was a wonderful lady, yeah. She was the backbone of the family now. Yeah. Yeah, my grandma, yeah, uh-huh.
What kind of values did your grandma and your parents give you?
Well I think especially for my mom and my dad, they taught us to be honest, not to lie, cheat or steal, um, to be honest and to be who you are. To not try to pretend to be more than you are. And to love and to share. Yeah. My grandma, you know, take care of yourself.
Can you explain that a little more, when you say take care of yourself?
Well, look out for each other, you know, look out for the family.
Take care of the family.
Yeah, take care of the family, look out for the family.
Did that include your neighbors, because they were considered family?
Well yeah, when we moved down to on Merritt Mill Road, our house was here and then on the other side was my grandma's house, and on the other side was my uncle, my grandma's brother, across the street was my granddad's brother, then further down was my mother's parents, my other grandparents, so when we moved out Merritt Mill Road it was kind of, it was a big community but I had more relatives that lived down in that area, on Merritt Mill Road.
How much was education stressed in your home?
Education was very important. Very important, you know.
And who made it important?
I think everybody in the community made it important.
Did your grandparents stress it, did your parents stress it?
My parents did. My father did not graduate from high school, I forget how far he went in school. But my mom did. She graduated, as a matter of fact she graduated top in her class. She didn't continue her education, because she got married, you know.
Of all your brothers and sisters, how many graduated high school?
All except two.
How many went on to get college degrees?
Um, my sister Helen who is a schoolteacher now. She graduated, my brother Ollie, N.T., I attended North Carolina Central University, let's see . . . yeah, about four of us.
Out of a total of ten?
Ten, yeah. But um, you know all of them has good jobs, you know jobs
good enough to support them and everything. [Portion of interview excised.]
Did you have books in the house?
Yeah we had books, because you know, I spent some time back and forth, you know, my house and my grandma's house, and all of my grandma's kids except for my dad graduated from high school, and you know , they had material around, stuff like that. And they left, went up north, so there was stuff left there, you know, for us.
Is there anything else about your childhood that you want to share?
Um, not really. We, you know I think we had a good childhood. We didn't have everything that other people may have had, you know and things like that, but I think basically it was, I wouldn't say rough, you know it was difficult, we didn't have everything that we wanted or needed, you know. But we got things, you know, from time to time.
I don't want to focus on this, but I want to ask some delicate questions, and that is, was your father abusive?
No.
Was he a drinker?
Uh, was he a drinker—he did drink. You know, he worked. It's not like he came home every day drinking.
Did you ever see him drunk?
Did I ever see my daddy drunk . . . uh, no, not really. I've seen him drinking. Because my daddy [and] my grand-daddy, both of them drank. I would kinda hang with them sometimes, so I did have the opportunity to go with my dad to different of the houses that sold liquor, my grand-daddy's and stuff like that.
To the, uh . . .
. . . bootlegger.
Were they pretty common?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember my dad started one one time. We were living on Mayberry Road. It was so funny. All of a sudden, Daddy wanted to make some extra money selling some liquor. Lasted one day. He started that morning, I'd say sometime early that afternoon, here come the police. They came in, they raided the house, and they poured all the stuff down the commode. And they said, "Bill,"—they called my daddy Bill—"Bill, don't do this again." And that was it. Never tried it again.
Did you see much alcoholism in your neighborhood?
Yeah. There was. There were a number of houses, bootleg houses in the community.
Where there was, people were drunk?
We did see some, uh-huh.
I would like to ask you about Northside, but because of the limited time, I'd like to go on to your experience at Chapel Hill Junior High, and then if we have more time together, I'll go back and talk to you about Northside.
Okay.
But, you left Northside in sixth grade, and in 19, did you say 62?
Yeah.
In 1962 you went to—
Chapel Hill Junior High School up on Franklin Street.
Uh-huh, which was integrated the year before by, it was choice that the African American student could make to go there or go to Lincoln.
It was a choice, I think it was a choice that certain people in the community and your parents made.
So did you not want to go to the Chapel Hill Junior High School?
Well in a way I did, because I got bribed by my grandparents [laughter]
Did the minister have any bearing on it?
I don't recall, I do recall Miss Gloria Williams who was a big part of this community, that passed away about a year ago, I think she was a part of it.
So you were the second class to enter Chapel Hill Junior High School that had some African American students?
Yeah, I think before that some had gone to the elementary school. I don't know when Stanley Vickers went, it may have been three years before then, but maybe Stanley Vickers and a few other ones.
And how many black students were there?
Um, myself, Keith Edwards, David Briggs, Pernell Jackson, James Britt, I do remember those five. There may have been some that didn't hang with us, but I do remember those five, let's see, Carrie, Keith, James, Pernell, David Briggs, myself.
Did you have any orientation before you went to—
Not that I recall.
So you just sort of showed up there in the fall or late summer and went to school?
Yes.
Do you remember it, your first day there?
I don't. For some reason I don't. I know I used to sit in class and cry a lot.
You would cry in class.
Yeah. Cause I was afraid of what was going to happen once I walked out of the classroom.
What sort of things did happen?
You were called names, some people wanted to fight, you know.
The names that you were called, was that a regular daily thing?
For a while, yeah.
How long did that last?
It, well you know, most of that year. It lasted most of that year, um, seventh grade year, and then the following year they be at Guy B. Phillips, and a lot of it continued. As a matter of fact it was to the point where it was so bad my first year at Guy B. Phillips, no one was aware of it and no one probably cared, you know with the school system, I played hooky for about, not every day, but for about two or three months I stayed out of school. And you know, I just didn't go. And no one missed me and no one cared, you know. But then more people started coming to the junior high school and it got a little bit better, we had more teachers that cared about us, and kind of looked after us and, you know.
What happened if you played hooky from Northside?
The teacher would leave the classroom and walk across the field, or go to your house, get in their car and go to your house and see what was wrong, you know.
So you didn't mess around by missing school much at Northside?
No, because it was fun, you know, it was, you know school was fun back then. You had a good time.
Did you, so let me go back over this. You stayed at Chapel Hill Junior High School one year, and then you went to Phillips?
Went to Phillips.
Uh-huh, and it was the same at Phillips?
In a way, yeah.
And when did it end, this verbal abuse?
When does it end?
When did it end?
When does it end? [laughter]
When does it end, maybe it's still going on.
Probably not as much, but I'm pretty sure there's still some things that
are still being said. People may not be using the same language, and you
know, but I'm
With an “i” instead of an “e”.
Yeah, uh-huh, I remember her.
Were there, was there any physical abuse?
There were fights, yes. There was.
So you got into fights?
Uh, some, yeah. But like I said I had this real close friend, a guy named Reedy Hilton. His father was the track coach at Carolina for a long time. So, and I think Reed still lives here in Chapel Hill, lives out in Chatham County now. He was a close friend and he would always stop us from fighting.
He was a white student?
Yeah, uh-huh. And this other guy named Kenny Rogers—I don't know where Kenny's at now—Kenny used to be a Chapel Hill police officer here in Chapel Hill, and I haven't seen him in a while, but um, you'd have people like that that would kind of intervene, and help out.
So you saw the best and the worst of what went on. You had students who taunted you and got into a fight with you, but then you had students who helped stand up for you, did you feel?
Yeah, I was an athlete, so kind of, you know, if you were an athlete you had a little bit of advantage. I didn't play much sports in junior high school up on Franklin Street, but once I got out to Guy B. Phillips I played basketball, ran track.
So you think being an athlete helped in your being integrated into this mixed—
I think it helped, yeah, uh-huh. It didn't help overall because when you
went to another school to play, you know, and sometimes being the only
black athlete out
This taunting stayed—
It stayed with me.
Even into Chapel Hill High School.
Yes, it did. Uh-huh, until I stopped playing sports.
You must have felt angry about this.
Sometimes I would get angry, yeah.
How do you get over that anger, of those experiences?
I think you get over it by protecting the ones you love and making sure that's not going to happen to them. That's where I get over it.
Yet from what I hear from you, you still think some of it's going on.
I would say so, yeah, maybe not in the same way, but yeah.
Maybe less?
Yeah. And it didn't just happen in the schools, it was in the community back then. So you know, a lot of people look at integration and say the blacks had all these problems, but you know, we had those problems before we went into the school system, you know, when you left Lincoln you had problems. When you left y our community you had problems. When we left Merritt Mill Road, when we left Northside area, you know, and went downtown into the community, you know, you had those problems. So it was just not in the school system.
When you say you had problems, you're talking about segregation?
Yes.
Verbal abuse?
Yes.
Fear?
Yes, uh-huh.
How did your parents teach you to deal with that?
I think back then the parents, you know, wanted us to stay in our place, you know, stay in your community.
Are there any other memories that you have of the junior high school or Phillips that you'd like to share?
Junior high school . . . I remember we, 'cause you had the junior high school here, then you had the high school, and it was separated by an auditorium, and then you had, in the back was the arts and crafts building, and then you had the gymnasium and the P.E. department was kind of in the back. We came out the door from the junior high school, myself and David Briggs and Pernell Jackson, we would walk across the street to the Exxon service station which is now McFarling's Exxon, we would walk down the street past where BW3 is now, used to be the old Belk's and feed store, and cross over to go to the gymnasium and to go to the arts and crafts building because we didn't want to walk behind the school. There was a big field between the school and there was a fraternity house, and sometimes the students from the fraternity house would come over there and bother us, not just us but all the students. So we would walk across the street and go down and come back across to get to class so we wouldn't have to go through the back where everybody would be. There was a snack bar back there so all the students would be back there, you know.
So you wouldn't get taunted or abused physically?
Yeah.
You mentioned one teacher who you thought was prejudiced. Were, did you have any positive experiences with the white teachers?
Yeah, uh-huh, we sure did.
Any who stood out?
Miss Zora Rashkis.
Zora Rashkis.
Yeah.
What was it about Zora that, um,
One of the things that I heard from the other people I interviewed was that the teachers at Lincoln and Northside both taught values, and I'm wondering whether you felt that Zora Rashkis taught values.
She did, she did.
Can you explain that further?
Well she taught you, um, she made you feel a part of everybody. She wanted you to understand and to know that you could be just as important as the next person regardless of whether you're white or black. She opened her home up to all the students in her class, and she wanted you to know that you could succeed, you could do things. Just like the young lady that kept coming to class late, you know, she wanted her to prove to herself that she could be on time.
Did she also invite parents into her home?
I think Miss Rashkis probably invited everybody into her home.
Is that something that went on when you were at Northside, that the teachers visited your home?
Oh yeah, uh-huh.
So basically she was like your other teachers from Northside in a way.
In a way, yeah. Yeah, uh-huh.
Let's move on to, unless there are other memories that you have that you want to share of either Phillips or the experience at Chapel Hill Junior High.
Well you know, I got an education. That's one good thing that came out
of it. I did get an education, and whether it was the best education a
black student could have received at that time is debatable. I think it
did hurt in a way because you
Did you feel that the teachers at Chapel Hill Junior High or Phillips were giving you a harder curriculum, or it was more difficult at the white school?
See, I can't compare because I never attended Lincoln.
Well let's say; Northside.
Northside? Well it was a different environment, you know, you had, at Northside Elementary School you had a closer relationship, you knew the teacher, you felt comfortable. And you know all the students in class, so you had people to work with, people to help you out if you had a problem. And in junior high school it was more like you were on your own, you know. But you know, like I say, and I really hate to start calling names because there was a lot of good teachers, you know Miss Rashkis, Zora Rashkis, and Miss Stanford, really sticks out and there was a history teacher by the name of Mr. Vaughn I think, and you know, people like that.
So it was a mixed bag, was your experience with the teachers in the way of how you could relate to them?
Yeah, like this history teacher, I had her in the seventh grade and I said, God, I done got rid of her when I left Chapel Hill Junior High School and went to Guy B. Phillips, but I got her again out there in eighth grade. And we was in class one day, and this was when President Kennedy was assassinated. And she made a statement, she said 'I bet some niggra did it,' you know, right in class. And um, she sure did, she said 'I bet some niggra did it.” And everybody, you know, sitting up in class, and you know.
So you left Phillips Junior High School and went to the new Chapel Hill High School?
New Chapel Hill High School, there was like a lapse, because the year
that I played hooky for so long, I didn't pass my grade that year,
because I just didn't do nothing. And I kind of like hung out in the
woods. And um, and I think, one day, when you hung out in the woods you
hung out near Lincoln, because you wanted to see everything that was
going on. You wanted to see all the activities they was doing, like the
May Day program, and the different activities they had, and the
Now did you think that the first year Chapel Hill High School was open, the new Chapel Hill High, that it was going to be integrated, or was it supposed to be all white for a while?
No we knew, we knew, and you know, a lot of people was hoping, myself for one, that that was the year that we were going to be able to go back to Lincoln, because everybody grew up wanting to play sports at Lincoln. I used to get up and you know, the football and basketball games, which I could walk to the gym, but on Saturday mornings when my two brothers would go play baseball and run track, you know the bus would come by the house and pick them up, and I'm sitting there wanting to go, couldn't go. Everybody grew up wanting to go to Lincoln, to be a part of that program. Whether the band, the drill team, the basketball team, the football team, or whatever. Everybody, every black child grew up wanting to be a part of Lincoln High School. And there was so much there, I mean, everything, you know, I mean it was so much we saw growing up. You probably had more people at practice than at games sometimes because everybody wanted to go see Lincoln. That's the way it was.
When you went to football practice at Lincoln, did you see some of the graduates come back and help out?
I don't remember all of them, but there were some that came back.. You know, I don't remember Coach Bradshaw that well, but I do remember Coach Peerman, because that's the time that my brother was playing.
I understand that at one point the team, the football team would jog around the stadium and then come into the center, to the 50-yard line, and can you tell me about what they did?
I don't remember all that. I do kind of have a vague memory of that happening, but I don't remember all of it, because back then, you know, the football team, once they started playing football, we watched the football game. But before football games, we watched the bands. You know, we watched the band, the majorette, the bandleader, and all that stuff. Football—
They performed before the game. Did they perform at halftime as well?
Yes, uh-huh. Yeah. So we watched, you know, football game, game started we watched that, before that we watched the band. But I'm pretty sure there was some time that they did you know, march in, the football team, but I don't remember, I don't remember all that.
You remember the bus?
Yeah, uh-huh. RG: Can you describe that?
It was an old bus, a bus that people thought wouldn't make it from here to the top of the hill. It was kind of like the bus that we used to have for the Recreation Department when I first started working here.
What color was it?
I think it was yellow. I'm not for sure. Yeah.
Did it have the tiger on it?
Yeah.
So they painted the tiger on the side.
Yeah that bus would, they would park that bus in the back of the stadium when they went out to the football stadium on Fidelity Street to play football games on Saturday, or on Friday night.
What was the name of the stadium along Fidelity?
You know I never knew the name of that stadium. But it was used by Chapel Hill High School and also Lincoln. I think by the Recreation, we had some Recreation games out there too.
So you sat out a year and then went in '66 to Chapel Hill High School.
Yes, uh-huh.
And what was it like there the first year?
You had more blacks out there. As we looked at it, you had the guys from
Lincoln that came, so we felt like then that, hey, we got our protection
out here. You know, you had the people like um, Thurman Couch, Rudolph
Farrell, Charles Farrington, Larry, it was Henry Campbell, Henry McCray,
you had all those guys and more that was coming out there. And these
were like the big, which there was only like a year apart in our age,
but we just felt like we, uh, [Portion of interview excised.]
Well some of that had kind of gone away, because my ninth grade year at
Phillips I played basketball. So since I played basketball I kind of you
know had more friends, um, but I do recall going back a little bit, one
day at basketball practice, myself and there was two other guys, Jesse
Chavis and [unclear]
In Brady's? In '66? I thought desegregation was—
No, this was my ninth grade year, so this was like '65.
Oh, okay, before the civil rights, the federal civil rights law.
Well you might have had the federal civil rights law, but there still was some people that would tell you you couldn't come into the store. And I'm, you know, I don't know the owner of the store but the little store on the corner, I don't think it was Brady's restaurant then.
Oh I see, it was like a candy store, soda store.
Yeah, so they said well give me your money and we'll bring you something back out, and I says well what's going on, and they said well you can't go in with us. So I turned around and walked on back on up the hill to the school, and they went in the store. You know, and like I say, I don't remember the name of it and I don't remember the owner, and what I don't want to do is throw some names out there that's not true, you know, some people that might not have been a part of some negative thing that was going on.
What was it like in the school, with the teachers that first year, and with the relationship, your relationship with teachers and your relationship with the white students at the new high school?
Well you know with the teachers, they brought some of the black teachers out, you know, Mr. McDougle came, Mr. R.D. Smith, so we had some people that we could go to, people that we could talk to if we had a problem, um, people that was out there that was going to make sure that we got a good education and we was treated, you know, fairly, that we was not mistreated. So we had people like that. You had Coach Culton who was the football, basketball, track, swim, golf, he coached everything. He was there and kind of, you know, took care of student athletes.
So you felt he was fair to all races.
Coach Culton?
Uh-huh.
I would say so, yeah. And Coach Peerman was out there also.
What was your feeling that Coach Peerman, who had been so successful with the sports program, was now assistant coach? Was that bothersome?
He was assistant coach, he was JV coach. Um, in a way it did, but also, um, by me being a sophomore, I played JV football, so I got the opportunity to play under him, you know.
Uh-huh. What kind of a coach was he?
As far as, he was a good coach, he was a good person, you know, a good role model, he looked out for everyone. He was a fair coach, whether you was white or black, you know, um, with all the blacks that came out to Chapel Hill High School back then, I think they kind of felt like that they was gonna be mistreated. Like Mr. McDougle, he was assistant principal, I think he was in charge of books.
So you sort of expected, when you say that others expected to be mistreated when they went to the high school.
I think so, um, I mean I'm pretty sure that we was, and other people was not thinking that hey, this is a big change for us, it's for the best, and everything is going to be just fine.
Did it bother you that almost all the core curriculum teachers were white, and the black teachers were in peripheral courses?
Well, see, I had had that for the past, you know, three years.
So it was nothing new to you.
No, it was nothing new. And I think people kind of expected, I'm pretty sure people knew that, this community knew that all the black teachers at Lincoln was not going to be brought out to Chapel Hill High School and also, you know, Lincoln stayed open for a while as a school, as like an elementary and middle school, so there was still some classes at Lincoln, so some of the teachers stayed down there.
Um, what I'd heard from others is that tensions seemed to get worse over a couple of years, and I wonder if you could tell me what your feelings were about what happened at the school leading up to the riot that occurred.
You know, I don't remember a lot about the riot, probably for a couple reasons. Because we had teachers that wouldn't let us out of class when the thing really broke out, you know, we'd be sitting there, we'd say we hate all white people, and she would say, well do you hate me, and we'd say no, we don't hate you, and she'd say, but I'm white. Yeah, but we don't hate you, we just hate the white people, you know. So, and, like I say, I don't remember a lot of it.
Do you remember the issue that sparked the riot, or the issues that made the black students have this hatred?
I think the black students wanted to be a part, they wanted to be heard,
to let people know that they were part of the school. And I think the
main thing, they wanted it to be their school also. You know, I can
remember the first year in '66, we had an excellent football team. And
we went to Roxboro, and played Roxboro, and they beat us. They beat us.
They really beat us. And we, the next week at practice, Coach Culton
walked out on the field, and he was real quiet, you know, and he had
this letter in his hand. And somebody at Roxboro had wrote him a letter,
and this is what it was saying, 'Do not never bring those niggers up
here to try to beat us in football again.' You know. So, you know,
things like that happened, and we would go places, and play games, you
know. There were some teams that still didn't have any blacks on their
teams, so we encountered a lot of hatred from that. And I think it just
kind of carried over and, what had happened, you had basically taken
something from both races, you know, you had the white
When you ran into this racism on the football field, did you feel you had support among the whites on your team and the coach on your team?
Some you did, yeah.
Some you did.
Yeah.
Some you didn't.
I would go as far as to say, if we ran into any type of hostility, racism from another school, I would say you had the support of um, if not all, most of the football members. You know, we, you know, Chapel Hill was a small place, you know. And a lot of people grew up in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. So we knew some of the people that we went to school with and played football with, and it was not like, you know, every day someone was running around calling us niggers and stuff like that, or we walked into the locker room, you know, and there's only one . . .
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
...so yeah, you know, it's not like we couldn't sit down beside him, or when we walked into the shower everybody, all the whites would walk out, um, it was not like that, you know. There were some problems; there were a lot of problems. There were some things that, you know, some people want to forget, but there was a lot of things taken away from both races.
Do you remember the issue of the marshals around the time of the riot?
I don't, I don't recall that. I don't know why.
Do you remember what year the riot occurred in?
No I sure don't.
Was it your last year at the high school? [Portion of interview excised.]
Do you remember how long the riot went on? Fifteen minutes, an hour, half a day?
Not sure at all.
Did anything happen after-so that was the year that you graduated, which was '69?
Yeah. I do remember, I don't remember, there may have been other riots that went on.
Did anything happen positive after the riot?
As far as what?
As far as what the black students, what the African American students wanted changed at the school. The feeling that-
I think that you may have had some things changed, as far as representation on the yearbook, representation on the student body, representation as far as Homecoming queen, you know, and things like that.
Did you feel it ended up, well you weren't there afterwards to know.
No, no.