Pottersfield (or Potter's Field)

"We were Potter's Field and Sunset. Students came mostly from Potter's Field and Sunset. So, whites were east of Caldwell Street. Some of them were on the eastern...end of Caldwell Street. Airport Road. Out in that area. So I did not [pass white students heading to Chapel Hill High while walking to Lincoln]."

- James Atwater

Pottersfield (sometimes spelled "Potter's Field") is a historically Black neighborhood in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, located north of West Rosemary Street and west of Columbia Street. The neighborhood and its surrounding area were designated over 100 years ago as a place for formerly enslaved people, many of whom worked at the University of North Carolina, to live. Pottersfield was situated between two other historically Black neighborhoods, Sunset to the west and Windy Hill to the North. Today, the neighborhoods known as Sunset and Pottersfield are often referred to collectively as Northside.

While the Pottersfield area is in a location that is currently considered "downtown," when the neighborhood was first established, the location was far from central. The land in the area was undeveloped without paved roads, and the terrain was very hilly with creeks running through it, making it a location where Chapel Hill's white residents had no interest in building.  As Tin Top resident Mr. William Gattis recalled, "the whole idea is we can’t have you all among us, so we’re going to put you on the outskirts." 

As the neighborhood grew, the Town of Chapel Hill did not provide the same amenities to Pottersfield residents that it did to the residents of white-occupied neighborhoods in town. Chapel Hill resident Virginia Carson mentioned at a community meeting in 2025, "in terms of city services, you can still see it: there are no sidewalks, or many fewer sidewalks, or they’re broken and narrow and not very safe, actually. This was the pattern in all Southern towns: Black folks were on the fringes of the larger towns." 

At the same community event, Chapel Hill native Mrs. Patricia Jackson described the neighborhood's history: "The Pottersfield that we knew was thrown away property that nobody else wanted -- that nothing else could happen on. And they said, 'OK. You could use this area.'" Mr. William Gattis added, "Actually it wasn't so much you could use, but “This is where you’re relegated to, because we have established white Chapel Hill as being between Boundary Street and Merritt Mill Road. This is our territory. Now we’re going to relegate you all to the Northside or Pottersfield area, to Tin Top, to Pine Knolls, to South Lane, and Windy Hill. Because these are the worst areas in the town, and we aren’t going to be there, but we don’t mind you all being there.'"

The origin of the name Pottersfield is Biblical, referring to land that was purchased with the silver that Judas received for betraying Jesus.  The land was called the potters' field because it was previously used by potters to dig up clay for their pots.  After its purchase, the land served as a burial place for the unidentified or indigent. (Mathew 27:3-10, Acts 1:18-19, Zechariah 11:12-13) The Biblical scriptures that lent the neighborhood its name were well known to the residents of Chapel Hill's Black community. Mr. Gattis explained, "in the Bible, Potter’s Field was where we had the dead bodies." Long-time resident Ms. Kathy Atwater also recognized the term Pottersfield as referring to "the place of the dead."

The name also had other negative connotations. Mrs. Euzelle Smith remembered in an oral history in 2011, "where I came from, potter's field was like a slum area in town." When people would ask where she lived and she replied "Caldwell Street," they would say "Oh, you live in Potterfield."  Mrs. Smith recalled, "So I never did tell my parents that I lived in Pottersfield...they would have wanted me to come home right away."

Some community members tried to shield their children from the negative impressions of the name.  Ms. Kathy Atwater remembered, "I did not know this was Potter's Field. The parents called it Pottage Field, which had a different connotation for me growing up." Pottage is a term for a thick and hearty soup or stew, and Ms, Atwater recalled that "by them telling us that it is Pottage Field, we were happy to be home." She further explained that, with this renaming of the neighborhood, the elders in the community "protected us from all that they had to face and it gave us an opportunity to succeed and go forward."

Parents also protected their children in other ways. Mr. Gattis recalled, "You actually learned as a child where you can go and be safe and not harmed." He added, "The kids had to learn early...a child of color is asking her father, 'Daddy why are we going to the back door when everybody else is going the front?' This is a child. And that becomes a loss of innocence."

Not only were Black residents relegated to property that whites deemed undesirable and restricted by Jim Crow segregation laws, but they were also subject to violence from the white community: "White men thought it was their point of duty to cross over into Northside or Pottersfield to rape Black women and kill Black men and then go back to the other side of town and not have to pay a price for that balance.  And that is why, as we move along, parents would tell us: There are certain places after dusk [where] you need to be at home – because of the violence that these students would perpetrate with no reprisals from anybody." 

But despite these threats of violence, the struggle of living under Jim Crow segregation, the negative connotation of the Pottersfield name, and the white community regarding the neighborhood's land as less-than, Pottersfield residents built a strong, proud, and independent community within the boundaries of the town's Black neighborhoods. As Mr. Gattis explained, the boundaries of the Black community marked home for local residents, and within that home area, people could write their own narrative of their community and its abundance. "Windy Hill is a wall of your house, Northside is a wall of your house or Pottersfield, Tin Top is one of the sides of your house, South Lane is another side of your house Pine Knolls is another side of your house.  But in that house you get to write the narrative. And you are professionals. You're teachers. You're stone masons. You're laborers.  You have your own homes to grow into in a community." Ultimately, he recalled, "those individuals that were relegated to these areas were self-sufficient, and visionary enough to create their own space and their own narrative."

From its beginnings, the neighborhood was made up of Black homeowners committed to their community. In the 1960s, urban renewal planners and developers wanted to use the land in Pottersfield for rental units and other purposes, pressuring residents to sell their homes and move elsewhere. In an oral history interview, Mr. R.D. Smith recalled, "As people died, they began to rent their property or children sold their property," to the point that in 2011 he related, "everything on this street...we're the only house on this street that's privately owned...everything else is rental property all the way down on both sides."

Over the decades, neighbors have came together and fought back to preserve the character of their neighorhood, seeking federal funding to improve their homes and build new resident-owned homes in the immediate vicininty and preserving their history so that the next generation of Northside residents will remember and honor the legacies of Pottersfield and the other historically Black neighborhoods in the area.