Chronology

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1. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

2. 1951
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Lincoln High School opens on Merritt Mill Road

   In 1951 Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill's high school for Black students, moved from the old Orange County Training School building on Caldwell Street to a new building on Merritt Mill Road, and the old building became Northside Elementary. Lincoln used the Merritt Mill Road campus until 1966; the building is now the school district's Lincoln Center.

3. 1951 to the mid-1950s
   Naming or commemoration · Pottersfield and Sunset, Chapel Hill The name Northside began to replace Pottersfield and Sunset

   When the old Lincoln building became Northside Elementary in 1951, the school's name spread to the Black neighborhoods around it. By the mid-1950s Pottersfield, north of West Rosemary and west of Columbia Street, and its western neighbor Sunset were both being called Northside.

4. March 1957
   Appointment, election or service · Northside School, Chapel Hill Frances Hargraves teaches Chapel Hill's new special education classes at Northside School

   The Chapel Hill schools had begun special education classes, one at Chapel Hill Elementary School and one taught by Frances Hargraves at Northside School. The Junior Service League paid a $200 scholarship for her training.

5. June 23, 1959
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Stanley Vickers's parents apply for his transfer from Northside Elementary to Carrboro Elementary

   After ten-year-old Stanley Boya Vickers finished fifth grade at Northside Elementary School in June 1959, his parents, Thomas Lee and Lattice Vickers, filed a written application to have him reassigned to Carrboro Elementary School, which was much nearer their home. The school board denied it on August 3, 1959.

6. August 3, 1959
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill school board refuses Stanley Vickers a transfer to all-white Carrboro Elementary and adopts a first-grade proximity policy

   The Chapel Hill City Board of Education denied ten-year-old Stanley Vickers a transfer from all-Black Northside Elementary to the nearer all-white Carrboro Elementary School, and at the same meeting adopted a policy of limited integration at the first-grade level starting with the 1960-61 year. UNC law dean Henry Brandis, who had twice moved to approve the transfer, resigned from the board in protest and called the action both morally and legally indefensible.

7. 1962
   Life event · Chapel Hill Junior High School, Chapel Hill Nate Davis moves from Northside Elementary to Chapel Hill Junior High

   In 1962, after sixth grade at Northside Elementary, Davis went to Chapel Hill Junior High School on Franklin Street as one of the first Black students in the town's formerly white schools. Harassment kept him out of school for two or three months, and he later attended the new Chapel Hill High School when it opened.

8. 1966
   Closing or ending · 350 Caldwell Street, Chapel Hill Northside Elementary closed as the school system integrated

   The Caldwell Street school closed soon after the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools began mandatory integration in 1966, and the building was turned into office space.

9. Recent decades · 1976–2026

10. 2012
    Law, policy or court · Northside Elementary School site, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board decides to build a new Northside Elementary on the old school's site

    The board announced a new elementary school on the grounds of the Northside school that had closed in 1966, to carry the Northside name. Black families in the Northside neighborhood, whose children had been bused to other schools for decades, welcomed it as a return of their school.

11. December 2012
    Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, Chapel Hill The school board votes 5-2 for the attendance plan that fills the new Northside Elementary

    After two months of public hearings on four draft plans, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board chose Plan 2.1, which spread at-risk students most evenly among the elementary schools and reassigned about 1,045 children. Most came from the two schools nearest Northside, including crowded Seawell Elementary, and the whole Section 74A area north of town was moved.

12. 2013
    Founding or opening · 350 Caldwell Street, Chapel Hill A new Northside Elementary opened on the old Training School grounds

    The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opened a new Northside Elementary on the former Orange County Training School site. In 2012 neighbors had rallied to make sure the new school kept the Northside name.

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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.