Eugene Farrar

"The only way our history can get told right, is that we have to tell it."

- Eugene Farrar

In this oral history, Eugene Farrar gives an account of growing up in Chapel Hill as well as his lineage of Black builders. Farrar discusses his uncle, James Blacknell, who was a rock mason at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also discusses his father, who was the best cement layer in town, having laid all the driveways on Estes Drive. Farrar also reflects on his life and career, having left Chapel Hill in 1963 in the pursuit of a career. He reflects fondly on his upbringing and lineage, telling us about his grandfather and early childhood memories. He emphasizes the hard-work and resiliency of his family and community, and urges the Jackson Center to continue preserving living history.

"It’s good to be on the register as being a registered voter, but your vote only counts when you go out and participate and pull the levers in the voting booths, because voting speaks to power.

- Eugene Farrar

In this interview, Eugene Farrar reminisces on his time as a political organizer and activist. Farrar was born and raised in Chapel Hill. He lived in Baltimore from 1963 to 2001, where he would become involved in political organizing and community activism. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. inspired Farrar to get involved with politics. He talks about the Mitchell family, a prominent African American family in Baltimore who were crucial in making Baltimore a more equal society. Upon returning to Chapel Hill in 2001, Farrar noticed how racism has become more covert compared to the 1960s and continued his work as a political organizer. He would go on to work with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. He was happy to see that younger people were coming out to vote and help with the campaign. What Farrar emphasizes in this interview is the importance of voting. To him, voting is a civic duty and gives everyone a say in the political world. Fighting for voting rights is an important subject for Mr. Farrar. He concludes the interview encouraging listeners to vote and discussing his time at a gospel event called Frangelism.

Eugene Farrar: Right now, I see a lot of work to be done. A lot of work to be done. You know in housing, you know we speak of – the most houses in Chapel Hill is public housing. You can’t live in Chapel Hill, where African-Americans really dominated this town, as well as all of your major urban cities in the–every state.

HV: Yep.

EF: African Americans dominated, were the largest population. But now you have this thing where you’re pushing African-Americans out, because you don’t think that they can pay taxes, or they don’t have the jobs, or the revenues to support the town. So you find a way to push them out and you bring people in to live in these houses, to build three, four, five hundred–six hundred thousand dollar homes.

EV: Which you know that the average person that was born and raised in Chapel Hill cannot afford them. So, I see work to be done in Chapel Hill and hopefully, you know somebody else will see it, get on board with that, and that we can make some changes.

HV: Yeah.

Eugene Farrar: [Singing] “We came this far by faith, lean on the Lord.” My, my, my, that’s a great song. I don’t know all of the words to it, but I love to hear the song being sung because that’s how African Americans come through slavery you know, come this far by faith-leaning on the Lord. Even during slavery, the slaves have songs that they sing - meeting songs:

“Going to lay down my burden, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside; Going to lay down my burden, down by the riverside ain’ t going to study the war no more.”

That’s when at the end of the day, slaves would go down by the river and they would have their communication and talk about how their day went and you know encourage one another. So, you know it has a great value to it, is that we have to remember where we came from and remember where we are trying to go, because if we don’t we are destined to repeat history if we don’t have a vision to go forward.

Eugene Farrar: Again this picture demonstrates some of the things that, that is very dear and near to my heart is the registering of people to vote. Because I think if you register to vote [it] is one thing, but then voting is another thing. You need to have people’s vote counted, it–it’s good to have…

EF: Being on the register, as being a registered voter, but your vote only counts when you go out and participate and pull for leaders in the voting booth because it speaks to power. Voting speaks to power. If you had your vote counted, then you can put in as much say or have a say in the political things that people do.