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Meet our Neighbors

"A lot of times you have to just listen--and be a listener."

Mr. Robert Revels

Meet the people who built the stone walls that surround the University, led movements for fair labor and housing across Chapel Hill/Carrboro, and fought for the freedom of all Black Americans.

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Charlene B. Regester

"I have a niece who went to Chapel Hill High and just based on some of the comments she's made to me, I have the impression that things haven't changed all that much..." - Charlene B. Regester

Robert Revels

Donny "Hollywood" Riggsbee

"We had some old regular houses with tin on them...They were in a row, lined up on Hargraves Street...everybody up there was some kin." - Donny "Hollywood" Riggsbee Donnie "Hollywood" Riggsbee was born and raised in the Tin Top neighborhood in Carrboro. He was the first black employee at Colonial…

Walt Riggsbee

"[Racism] never seemed to faze me. It fazed me more in the service than down here. Going overseas was bad." - Walt Riggsbee

Sidney Rittenberg

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Charles Rivers

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Marie Roberson

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Whitney Robinson Rivers

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Collene Rogers

Collene was born and grew up in her family’s home on Merritt Mill Road. Her mother, Mary Neville Riggsbee, grew up on the Neville Farm in Orange County and her father, Walter Riggsbee, grew up on the Riggsbee Farm in Chatham County. In the mid-1930s, they each left home to work for the University…

Barbara Ross

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Mark Royster

"We cannot sit idly by and expect others to work on our behalf and in order to save us from ourselves. We have to be actively involved in the process of salvation. So those of us who are willing to sit back in a community and wait for students, to wait for clergy, or wait for others to come and be…

Junius Scales

"There was tremendous resentment from generations from mistreatment. Most of the black women leaders, at least up until the time of the union, had never had an encounter with a white person that wasn't painful, humiliating or worse. So trying to get this across to white guys who were from the North,…

Beverly Scarlett

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Mary Scroggs

"With school desegregation] they tried to make it very clear that they were all students and they were all to be treated as individuals with worth. And some teachers weren't very enthusiastic about this and resigned as a matter of fact, I remember. Most of the teachers, I think, made a real…

Harvey Segal

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Clementine Self

"I've heard so many people in my generation say, "I don't want my children to go through what I had to go through," and I keep asking them, "What did you go through?" Everything that I went through, I appreciate. I mean, I don't know what I didn't have. If I didn't have it, I don't miss it, but I…

Coretta Sharpless

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Dr. Bettina Shuford

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Antonio Silva-Martinez

"...for a good neighborhood you need the family to be united. The parents have to teach their kids well and teach them to live with their neighbors and share with their neighbors and get along well with their neighbors, and I think if one neighbor gets along well with the other neighbors then they…

Ruby Farrington Simons

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Charlene Smith

"Whether it was always having a black teacher, having a black custodian, having a black principal who directed the way the school was going. Black cafeteria workers. It was black people around you, which you always had a sense of family, and a sense of community. A sense of safety, and a sense of…

Euzelle Smith

R.D. Smith

R.D. and Euzelle Smith built their house on Caldwell Street after R.D. returned from serving in World War II. Leading figures in the neighborhood and the town, both were life-long educators in Chapel Hill. He was the principal of Lincoln High School and a mentor to many young people who grew up in…

Reginald D. Smith II

Reginald D. Smith II, goes by Reggie, raised in Northside with his three siblings by Euzelle and R.D. Smith, both of whom were prominent educators in the area. Reggie Smith still lives in North Carolina and has two adult children.