Oral Histories

"I’m a people person, you know that, I love people. And I love to talk." - Louise Felix In this interview, Mrs. Felix exudes warmth and happiness. She highlights her family’s deep history of construction. Beginning with the Hargraves Community Center and continuing on throughout Chapel Hill and…

Louise Felix: Out of the boys, four. Kathryn Wall: All four boys. Do you know the names of all four boys? I know you said your Uncle Handy. Louise Felix: Uncle Leo, Uncle George, and Uncle Bill Kathryn Wall: Okay. And did any of their sons go into building with them? Louise Felix: No, after they…

Louise Felix: I know when the man came from State to do the job and I went over there across the street and I was talking to him and he said, I was telling him about how my grandaddy built the school. And he said, “What?” And I said, “Yeah he and all of his sons.” And he told me to come around there…

Louise Felix: I think my grandaddy what they were saying, you would need to ask Peter. I think he built every rock house when he was coming up there, except the one on Merritt Mill Road Road with his sons and things. Down there in front of Lincoln Center that house across the street, the rock house.…

“Lincoln High. That was the school back then. Everybody couldn’t wait to get to Lincoln High School.” - Sheila Florence Sheila Florence, a nurse lab technician, grew up in Chapel Hill during the 1950s and 60s. She reflects on her experiences growing up in the Northside district, attending Northside…

Harold Vaughan: So how long have y’all lived in this, this neighborhood? Esphur Foster: Seventy years. HV: Your whole life. EF: Yeah. We have, we had a cookout one night and we brought all of our, a lot of old pictures out and were showing them to everyone at the cookout. We got and left them out,…

Esphur Foster (EF): So when we took her down to the hospital that next morning Charley sent word over to the dental school and she said, tell everybody if they want to see Hattie for the last time to say goodbye, to come over. So when we got ready to leave Hudson, the whole Emergency Room dock was…

Esphur Foster (EF): Cause children always… Hudson Vaughan (HV): Create EF: Yeah they do, yeah they do. Chante, had met a little girl and her father was wonderful. He taught science at Chapel Hill High. He was the most incredible man and they just fell in love with each other. So then, she wanted,…

Hudson Vaughn (HV): Were you involved also in some of the marches, like Harold? Esphur Foster (EF): No he was at the forefront. I did march, in one or two of them. We had to take an oath, not to be nonviolent and mother always taught us to support each other if we were doing right. So we thought…

Hudson Vaughan: All these stories, I feel like, speak to really what makes a neighborhood. But could you talk a little bit about what you feel like have been the most valuable aspects of the neighborhood you’ve grown up in? And if maybe it has changed then what that change has been like. Esphur…

Esphur Foster (EF): If you don’t know where you came from, you won’t know where you’re going. Harold Foster (HF): Mhm-mm [in agreement] EF: You gotta know where you came from. Hudson Vaughan (HV): And Mrs. Jackson’s quote is “If you don’t know --Without the past, we have no future.” EF: Future!…

Esphur Foster has lived on Cotton Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for 70 years.  In this interview, Foster discusses the powerful life of her mother, Hattie Mae Foster, as well as growing up in Chapel Hill during a pivotal time in history. She also describes much about life before, during, and…

Audio recordings of interviews conducted by Yonni Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C.

Audio recordings of interviews conducted by Yonni Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C.

There are two interviews with Esphur Foster and friends, with one recorded on Yonni Chapman's side of the room and the…

Esphur Foster: And then the boys used to go to the trestle and jump in that sewage water and learn to swim because there was no way- you know, for us- to learn to swim. Hudson Vaughan: Mhm EP: So, they- the girls didn’t play that- so they would go over there and swim in the trestle.

Audio recordings of interviews conducted by Yonni Chapman with participants in the African American freedom struggle and the civil rights movement in and around Chapel Hill, N.C.

Christian Jacobi Foushee-Green is the lead singer, songwriter, and keyboardist for the “Chit Nasty Band” which he created in 2011, one year after graduating from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Born on April 26 in 1988, Christian (or “Chit” to some of his fans) has been involved in both…

"After the announcements were said I had this motto I would state, every Sunday I would say, "We are so happy to have you worshiping with us, we hope you would come back again." And St. Paul’s motto was: "visitors are strangers but once."" - Arminta Foushee Aminta Foushee shares photographs and a…

"He [Jacob James] was just very well respected here in Chapel Hill. I remember when he passed in Chapel Hill, I was living in Washington DC. It was probably one of the largest funeral servicec I’ve attended at St. Paul [AME Church]. They had to bring in chairs, they put chairs in the aisle and over…