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…

Food takes center stage for Janie Johnson. In this interview, she describes in vivid imagery, along with accompanying envisioned smells, the kitchens of her mother and grandmother and all the food that came out of them. Several times, Ms. Johnson mentions how the sassafras tea that her grandmother…

"My momma bought a house, four walls that did not have running water, did not have a bathroom, and did not have a kitchen sink. She walked through the door and began working on that house and every year we are still doing renovations to that house. They bought it in ’52 and here it is in 2019, and I…

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.

"She [Sarah Carter] loved the community. She loved people who worked, that worked and needed a ride but did not have transportation." - Mary Morrow Jones Mary Morrow Jones shares details of her mother, Sarah Carter who lived and ran a business out of 500 W Rosemary. Carter ran a taxi business, Sarah…

In this interview, Northside resident Edward Jones discusses a wide range of personal and community events that have shaped his life into what he sees it as today. Mr. Jones begins his story by talking about his relatives and their experiences: grandparents who worked and owned a dry-cleaners,…