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Alethea Anne Arrington Burt

Alethea Anne Arrington Burt (1902–1986), a Hampton Institute graduate, moved to Hillsboro in 1935 and taught the fifth through seventh grades and served as principal at Ridge Road School, a two-room school for Black children, until it closed in 1951. She then taught the elementary grades at Central High School in Hillsboro until she retired in 1969.

Source: NC State Historic Preservation Office: Ridge Road School, National Register nomination (OR1104), pp. 17-18

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Alethea Anne Arrington Burt. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Alethea Anne Arrington Burt’s life and work.

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 5 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Alethea Burt moves to Hillsboro and takes charge of Ridge Road School's upper grades Alethea Arrington Burt, a Hampton Institute graduate, came from Currituck County to Hillsboro in 1935, the year her husband Moses became the county's Black farm agent. She taught fifth through seventh grades and served as principal of the two-room school until it closed in 1951. People: Alethea Anne Arrington Burt Place: Ridge Road School, 2705 Coleman Loop Road (formerly Ridge Road), Hillsborough vicinitySearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Ridge Road School, National Register nomination (OR1104), p. 17
  2. Black rural school districts more than double their Red Cross gifts A Red Cross drive among the county's rural Black residents, run through the rural schools by A. L. Stanback and county agent M. C. Burt, closed with $472.55 from 428 people, against $224 the year before. Ridge Road district, with Mrs. A. A. Burt as principal, gave $36.32. People: A. L. Stanback, Joe Bethel Brooks, Moses Cimuel Burt Place: Orange CountySearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), March 29, 1945, p. 6
  3. Ridge Road School reports 75 pupils and a 149-book library The principal's report for 1948-49 counted 75 children enrolled, 57 in average attendance, with the sixth and seventh grades the largest group at 40. The school's equipment was a globe, a flag, word cards, art supplies and a library of 149 books. People: Alethea Anne Arrington Burt Place: Ridge Road School, 2705 Coleman Loop Road (formerly Ridge Road), Hillsborough vicinitySearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Ridge Road School, National Register nomination (OR1104), p. 18
  4. Alethea Burt starts a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School Principal Alethea Burt organized a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School in the 1949-50 term, when 64 children were enrolled. She and her husband, farm agent Moses Burt, helped form 4-H clubs among Black youth in the county. People: Alethea Anne Arrington Burt Place: Ridge Road School, 2705 Coleman Loop Road (formerly Ridge Road), Hillsborough vicinity · Also named: Moses BurtSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Ridge Road School, National Register nomination (OR1104), p. 18
  5. Alethea Burt retires from teaching at Central High School Alethea Burt, who had led Ridge Road School until it closed in 1951 and then moved with her pupils to teach the elementary grades at Central High School in Hillsboro, retired at the end of the 1968-69 year. People: Alethea Anne Arrington Burt Place: Central High School, Hillsborough · Also mentions: Ridge Road SchoolNC State Historic Preservation Office: Ridge Road School, National Register nomination (OR1104), p. 18

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

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People named in the same events

People named in the same dated entries as Alethea Anne Arrington Burt, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Background on Orange County’s Black high schools: the Training School, Lincoln and Central

Background reading on Orange County’s Black high schools: the Training School, Lincoln and Central. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss Alethea Anne Arrington Burt. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Black Freedom and the University of North Carolina, 1793-1960

Chapman, John K. · 2006 · John K. (Yonni) Chapman

John K. Chapman's 2006 study of race at UNC from 1793 to 1960, issued by the author. Chapman argues that standard university histories play down the institution's role in upholding white supremacy through slavery, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, and that they leave out what African Americans contributed to the campus. It also covers segregation in education and the social conditions of Black residents of Chapel Hill across two centuries. 215 pages with maps.

Oral history interview with Burnis Hackney, February 5, 2001: interview K-0547, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Hackney, Burnis · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Burnis Hackney entered Chapel Hill High School, newly integrated, in 1966, one of the first Black students there after Lincoln High School closed. In this Southern Oral History Program interview, recorded February 5, 2001, by Bob Gilgor, Hackney weighs his conviction that integration was right against what was lost when Lincoln's traditions were set aside, and how the merger played out for students. About an hour and a half. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Fred Battle, January 3, 2001: interview K-0525, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Battle, Fred · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Fred Battle grew up in Chapel Hill under segregation and describes that world in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded January 3, 2001, by Bob Gilgor. He portrays the Black community of his youth as centered on the church and on Lincoln High School, recalls his schooling there, and tells of his college years in Greensboro and the civil rights demonstrations he joined there. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Gloria Register Jeter, December 23, 2000: interview K-0549, Southern Oral History Program (#4007)

Jeter, Gloria Register · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Gloria Register Jeter (born 1952) attended both segregated and integrated public schools of Chapel Hill and offers a critical view of how desegregation was carried out, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded December 23, 2000, by Bob Gilgor. Jeter argues that the merger of Lincoln High School into Chapel Hill High School cost the Black community its school traditions and institutions, and describes the student protests that followed. Published online in 2006 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with James Atwater, February 28, 2001: interview K-0201, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Atwater, James · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

James Atwater, born in 1932 into a family that had lived in Chapel Hill for generations, talked with Jennifer Nardone in February 2001. He describes the town's Black community between the 1930s and the 1950s: how neighbors dealt with one another in church, at school and in social life, and what schooling under segregation meant at Orange County Training School and Lincoln High School. About an hour and eighteen minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Joanne Peerman, February 24, 2001: interview K-0557, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Peerman, Joanne · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Joanne Peerman, a Chapel Hill native and the daughter of a well-known coach, was in one of the first classes to integrate Chapel Hill High School. In this Southern Oral History Program interview, recorded by Bob Gilgor in February 2001, she describes her schooling under segregation and after it, the last years of Lincoln High School, and the civil rights demonstrations that accompanied school integration. About an hour and a half; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Show 6 more

Oral history interview with Raney Norwood, January 9, 2001: interview K-0556, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Norwood, Raney · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Raney Norwood was among the African American students who moved from Lincoln High School to the newly desegregated Chapel Hill High School. Interviewed by Bob Gilgor in January 2001, he recalls the traditions left behind at Lincoln, a hard first year at the new school, and the nonviolent protests students mounted to carry those traditions over. An Upward Bound math-science program also comes up. Runs about an hour and three quarters; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2006 through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Rebecca Clark, June 21, 2000: interview K-0536, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Clark, Rebecca · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Interview recorded June 21, 2000 with Rebecca Clark (1915-2009), a Black Chapel Hill resident, for the Southern Oral History Program at UNC. Clark, educated in Chapel Hill's segregated schools, describes working life under segregation and the economic discrimination she met in it. Topics also include Lincoln High School, school integration, and Howard Lee, elected mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969. Interview K-0536 in collection #4007.

Oral history interview with Sheila Florence, January 20, 2001: interview K-0544, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Florence, Sheila · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sheila Florence (born 1947) was one of the first African American students to enter Chapel Hill High School when it desegregated. In this January 2001 interview with Bob Gilgor she describes growing up in segregated Chapel Hill, the poor state of the town's Black schools, including Lincoln High School, the harassment she faced at the formerly white school, and the civil rights demonstrations of the era. About an hour and forty minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Stella Nickerson, January 20, 2001: interview K-0554, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Nickerson, Stella · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Stella Nickerson describes her girlhood in Chapel Hill's Black community during the years of school integration. Interviewed by Bob Gilgor in January 2001, she remembers a close neighborhood in which work, school and church were bound together, the disciplined atmosphere of the all-Black schools, and the changes integration brought as students moved from Lincoln High School to Chapel Hill High School. Runs about seventy-two minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Thurman Couch, February 12, 2001: interview K-0537, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Couch, Thurman · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Thurman Couch went from Lincoln High School into the first group of African American students at Chapel Hill High School. Interviewed by Bob Gilgor in February 2001, he compares the two schools, speaks as a former athlete about sports before and after desegregation, and argues that integration cost the Black community its school traditions and weakened the bond between school and neighborhood. The town's civil rights demonstrations also come up. About an hour; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Walter Durham, January 19 and 26, 2001: interview K-0540, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Durham, Walter · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Walter Durham, born about 1948 into a landowning Black family, grew up between Carrboro and Chapel Hill and attended Carrboro's all-Black schools until Lincoln High School merged into Chapel Hill High School in 1966. Over two sessions with Bob Gilgor in January 2001 he describes neighborhood life, church and school, what students lost and gained in the merger, and the civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s. About two hours and ten minutes; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2006, through Documenting the American South.

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