Oral Histories

Rev. Albert Williams is the minister at Staunton Memorial CME Church in Pittsboro. He is a lifetime resident of the area and was the first African American firefighter in Chapel Hill. This interview was conducted as part of the Jackson Center’s local life history series. Topics include: childhood…

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.

Lavisha Williams grew up with her maternal grandparents as part of the household, and learned to cook watching them and her parents. Most of the foods and meals she grew up with had been passed down from her great-grandparents without cookbooks or precise recipes. Most of what she ate with her…

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.

Doris Wilson was born in 1936 in Robeson County, North Carolina and moved to Chapel Hill in the mid 1950s. She has lived in her same home on Church St. in Chapel Hill ever since. In the interview, she discusses the transition to Chapel Hill when she was college-aged and the first times she…

Doris Wilson (DW): I bought her out, and I’m still there. Will Vaughan (WV): You’re still there now? Yeah. So, yeah, so I guess, what memories do you have from the early parts in this house that you’re in now? DW: Well I completed my education, you wanna hear that piece? I completed my education, I…

Paul Caldwell was the first African-American sergeant, lieutenant, and captain of University Police at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a long time resident of the Northside Neighborhood, and was a police officer for the University for 27 years, beginning as a patrol officer…

Created by Brentton Harrison when he was a member of the Marian Cheek Jackson’s inaugural season of its youth radio program, Fusion Youth Radio, and recipient of an award from PRX, this audio-documentary relies on oral histories to explore love of food and food as love.

Listen to James Atwater speak about the importance and impact of Black educators and his teacher Mrs. Turner. Mr. Atwater is an alumni of Lincoln High School, the Black high school prior to desegregation.