Oral Histories

Kathryn Wall (KW): Alright, this is Kathryn Wall from the Marian Cheek Jackson Center. We are here at Saint Joseph’s CME Church on November 1st, 2022. Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): I am Pat Jackson. I have the privilege of speaking with the archivist team this morning at Saint Joseph’s CME Church…

Kathryn Wall (KW): It sounds like even if a minister’s only gonna be there, maybe potentially only be there for a year or a couple of years, that those church officers then become a stabilizing part of leadership. Pat Jackson (PJ): And that’s a great point because we've always been charged as…

Patricia Jackson: We always were proud to be able to, once they got to our church grounds, we were always eager to run them right down to Hargraves Center because that was our stomping grounds. That was where we had all of our fun and did all of our interactions socially with dances, the movies, and…

Kathryn Wall: Hi, this is Kathryn Wall from the Marian Cheek Jackson Center, it is September 26th, 2023, and we’re here at St. Joseph’s CME Church. Patricia “Pat” Jackson: I am Pat Jackson, I am here at St. Joseph CME Church sharing communication about the life and times of St. Joseph’s. Anna…

Kathryn Wall: So to contextualize a little bit this period in the church’s history, you said you were out doing your thing during this time period, what was Chapel Hill like in the mid-70s? Patricia “Pat” Jackson: Rebounding and trying to stay afloat from the segregation and uproar of the 60s in the…

Kathryn Wall (KW): I’m sure it varied some, but when some of these older generation that had become homeowners and had been able to have the financial stability to support the church, I know when we look at the housing in this area one of the issues is trying to retain homeownership, when folks…

Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): He again was very instrumental in making sure that the young adults were involved and that year the young adults choir was renamed the “F.R. Gilbert Voices of Joy.” So we have several pictures of that full choir with all of those young adults. Kathryn Wall (KW): Is that…

Kathryn Wall (KW): At the time that Reverend Gilbert was the minister, were you more involved in the church at that point in your own life? Pat Jackson (PJ): Yes, yes ‘77 [pause] I finished high school and stuff and [was] back at church and I can’t remember what, I don’t remember what I was doing. I…

Kathryn Wall: What kind of qualities in a pastor inspired young people to get involved, do you think? Patricia Jackson: I think anytime that you were a little, not so much liberal, but not so stuffed shirt and rigid. If you had, you know, just some charisma or some excitement about you or something,…

"Well, it was always a place [the church] you could come to gain and find out the needs of the community." - Patricia "Pat" Jackson This interview is a part of the Marian Cheek Jackson Center’s faith series. In this interview, Pat Jackson discusses the life and legacy of Reverend Charles L. Hilton,…

Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): Alright, we’re up again for our time here at the pool party. All the way in the back, turn yourself…there you go, there you go. Let me just tell you a couple of things about this Hargraves Pool. Back in the day, this area for us was “the place”. Let me just tell you,…

Pat Jackson: Here, what had happened was every week that we were not in school, any time of the day, we could come to A.D. Clark Pool. We could come to Hargraves Center, and it would be something that would be going on that would fill our summers, fill our winters, with so much joy.

Pat Jackson: And here, in the establishment and commemorating the area you have Pottersfield which we knew was that area. You have Mrs. Jackson living as a resident in Pottersfield. She was not. She is a resident of Chapel Hill and she grew up on Merritt Mill Road in the house that they had as the…

Kathy Atwater (KA): And, now it’s gone. No more Windy Hill, Pat Jackson (PJ): No more Windy Hill. KA: All the Black neighborhoods are gone. William Gattis (WG): And we didn’t even get to Columbia Street because Church Street was a street that separated us–on one side White and on the other side…

Pat Jackson: Well if you, For the chunking up, I guess, what I’m thinking and Mr. Gattis, Kathy, you know, hear me out, if we’re listening, and want people to know about the Potter’s Field, what it really was,then it has to be stated what the proper narrative of what it was, what it is now, how it…

Patricia “Pat” Jackson: And I guess during the Janitorial Association …yeah, 1937 … Mrs. Jackson’s father was the first President of the Janitorial Association and he was working at the University living on Merritt Mill, which was all…and making sure that people had work, could get work, and could…

Dr. Courtney Rivard (CR): Pat, did you want add some other things? Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): I’m just going to thank you guys for these pages because I’m going to get some notes from my elders, some of the people that could not be here to, you know, help with getting the information that we need…

Patricia Jackson: We’re at the Lincoln High School Students’ page and where it says, “Later in 1962, Lincoln High School was dissolved as younger Pottersfield children began to attend Frank Porter Graham Elementary School, while older students were integrated into Chapel Hill High School.” That’s…

William Gattis (WG): We’re talking about 1966, because that’s when–well beginning around 1964 is when some of us began to enter the Chapel Hill High System. Patricia “Pat” Jackson (PJ): This says Lincoln High School in 1962, and see Lincoln High School in 1962 was Lincoln High School. Didn’t have…