Oral Histories

This interview is part of an oral history project called Southern Communities: Listening for a Change: Mighty Tigers--Oral HIstories of Chapel Hill's Lincoln High School. The interviewes were conducted from 2000-2001, by Bob Gilgor, with former teachers, staff, and students from Chapel Hill, N.C.'s…

“If you have good football teams, it permeates throughout the entire school and it helps the other things that you’re going to do come up to par, come up to snuff or whatever you want to call it. It cuts down on a lot of discipline problems. Kids want to do more in school, because they see the…

In this interview, long-time local Chapel Hill resident Carolyn Briggs discusses her experiences growing up in Chapel Hill. While her family moved a couple of times during her childhood, Carolyn developed strong relationships with her family, friends, and mentors. Carolyn discusses the challenges of…

Carolyn Briggs: Most of the students that were in there, they- we- were like fourteen, fifteen years old. So, you marched, demonstrated, it wasn’t – the older ones I think experienced some hostilities- but the younger ones, it was fun to work, to grow, and know that you could make a difference, that…

Carolyn Briggs describes writing essays in school to convince people to build the pool. She also describes being saved from drowning in the pool and remembers several of the lifeguards at A.D. Clark Pool.

“In the Black community, regardless of who you were, everyone socialized together to a certain degree.” - James Brittian James Brittian was born in 1944 on Rosemary Street and grew up in Chapel Hill. He talks about his family, growing up with his brothers and sisters, being a middle child, and his…

Charles Brooks: My grandfather and my father, they started out as subcontractors and they used to do a lot of work for like JP Co. Force Security Builders. They even did some framing for Tate Construction. In the early 70s my father ended up obtaining his contractor’s license and that is when they…

Charles Brooks: Subcontractors usually they are not licensed, especially for like my grandfather and my father, they were carpenters. So, like when I say they subbed that means they would go in once the foundation was put in on a house, they would go in and do all of the framing, do all of the…

"But they just didn’t want us to integrate, that was the biggest problem." - Carol Brooks The interviewees provide an overview of the Chapel Hill Civil Rights Movement. They specifically note the emotion of CRM marches of Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham in 1963. They speak on Watt’s Hotel…

Ben Barge: Do you remember what it felt like, being in the march? Carol Brooks: Well like I told you, it felt… wonderful, it was exciting, new, you know, trying to help integrate, want to be in the front []. Because I remember the bus station, you know, they had the colored, the white, you weren’t…

Keith Edwards: Yeah, 1966 when they fully integrated. Cause I went there in the seventh grade, and I was just eleven years old. We went on Franklin Street. Carol Brooks: See that was back in ’64, in ’63…That’s when we were cheerleaders for Lincoln High School. Patricia Atwater, Evelyn Walker, and…

Dr. James A. Bryan II, age 86, is currently writing a memoir about his life and medical career. This interview was conducted, while Dr. Bryan is in the process of reflection, to document his memories of Northside residents and their relationships.From 1964 to 2014, Dr. Bryan taught at UNC-Chapel…

"I really want my kids to first off, be good people, kind people, to be respectful of others, and to be advocates for themselves. I’m of course going to be their best advocate, along with their mother, my wife. But giving them the tools to be able to recognize when they themselves or others are…