Collections >> Oral Histories of the American South >> Document Menu
Oral History Interview with Robert R. Sampson, October 9, 2002. Interview R-0182. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
Audio Options
Transcript Only (21 p.)
Abstract
At the time of this interview, Robert Sampson was running a pharmacy on East Market Street in Greensboro, NC. Sampson describes how urban renewal in the late 1950s and early 1960s affected Greensboro's thriving black shopping district on Market Street. Sampson himself managed to stay ahead of redevelopment efforts, leaving areas destined for change for places he thought more secure. But most black businesspeople did not expect renewal efforts or see them as inevitable; as a result, they lost their businesses and often found it impossible to rebuild or relocate. While Sampson concedes that the dilapidated buildings on Market Street needed work, he suspects that the choice to seize and redevelop, rather than fund remodeling, was an effort by white Greensboro to dissolve a successful black business district. The effort worked, silencing a lively area and greatly damaging black businesses. This interview provides a look at a black business community's struggle to maintain its coherence in a changing economic climate.
Learn More
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.
Return to Oral Histories of the American South Home Page
Return to Documenting the American South Home Page
© Copyright 2004 by the University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, all rights reserved
Copyright / Usage Statement
URL: http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/R-0182/menu.html
Last updated May 12, 2008