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Harold M. Holmes

Harold M. Holmes became principal of the Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's school for Black children, for the term that opened in September 1933. He had taught for the five years before at Dudley High School, the Black high school in Greensboro.

Source: Chapel Hill Weekly: New Negro Principal, Harold M. Holmes Engaged to Conduct Orange County Training School (September 8, 1933, p. 1)

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Harold M. Holmes. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Harold M. Holmes’ life and work.

Browse all 62 works on Orange County’s Black high schools: the Training School, Lincoln and Central Research sources View background reading ↓

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each opens in the chronology.

Black Chapel Hill on the home front, 1942–19441942–1944 · From 1942 to 1944 Chapel Hill's Black residents carried on their own home-front work, from civil defense and scrap collection to bond sales and gardens. By 1943 twelve Black men trained for fire protection had civil defense arm bands, and the Orange County Training School had collected 22,075 pounds of scrap; its Jeep campaign sold more in stamps and bonds than the $900 cost of an Army jeep. Black residents began a Victory Garden campaign and formed a Citizens Service Corps. In 1944 Black veterans of both world wars formed an American Legion post, and a federally funded day nursery for children of Black working mothers opened at the Training School.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 24 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Harold M. Holmes becomes principal of the Orange County Training School Superintendent H. F. Munch, with the school board's approval, engaged Harold M. Holmes, for five years a teacher at Greensboro's Dudley High School, as principal of the Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's school for Black children. The school opened under him on Tuesday, September 12. People: Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 8, 1933, p. 1
  2. Boy Scouts collect readers for the Orange County Training School The Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's school for Black children, was badly short of books, mostly readers for the lower grades. The Boy Scouts set collection boxes in two Chapel Hill stores, and gifts of money went to principal Harold M. Holmes.Search the index · Chapel Hill Weekly: Boy Scouts Are Giving Aid to Chapel Hill's Negro Institution (December 15, 1933, p. 5)
  3. A Chapel Hill health conference hears the Black school's principal report hungry and ill-clad pupils At a citizens' health conference in the school auditorium on November 15, 1934, called by town health officer S. A. Nathan, the principal of the Black school, Mr. Holmes, reported that 144 of his pupils had no milk to drink, 86 had no midday meal, 52 came to school poorly clothed, 124 had bad teeth and 90 bad eyes. The meeting discussed mosquito and fly control, inspection of swimming pools, a survey of the blind and crippled with an orthopedic clinic, tuberculosis clinics, and examinations of household servants, and named Dr. Nathan, Mrs. Paul Green, Mrs. H. D. Crockford and Mrs. C. W. Shields to coordinate the work. People: S. A. Nathan, Harold M. HolmesSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 23, 1934, p. 1
  4. Black citizens of Chapel Hill organize the Colored Civic Club Leading Black citizens of Chapel Hill formed the Colored Civic Club 'to improve the social conditions' of the town's Black community, with Charles Craig as president and Eugene White as secretary. It met on the first Monday night of each month in the old Quaker school building on West Franklin Street. People: Hubert Robinson, Charles C. Craig, Harold M. HolmesSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 3, 1935, p. 1
  5. The Orange County Training School opens with a record enrollment and new courses Chapel Hill's school for Black children opened with a record 420 pupils, 101 of them in high school, against 369 a year before, and the county provided a bus for high school students from Sunnyside, Merritt, Morris Grove, Piney Mount and Damascus. For the first time the high school offered two years each of industrial arts and home economics, special music courses and night classes for adults. People: Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 10, 1937, p. 4
  6. State inspector finds the Orange County Training School meets the standards for a 1A rating H. L. Trigg, inspector of Negro high schools for the State Department of Public Instruction, visited the school and reported that it had met the department's requirements for a 1A rating; it had been rated 2B since 1932. People: Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 10, 1937, p. 4
  7. The Orange County Training School PTA elects Charles C. Craig and starts a drive for shop machinery At its first meeting of the year the Black school's Parent-Teacher Association chose Charles C. Craig as president and voted to raise money for manual training machinery, a victrola and radio for the music department, and a mimeograph machine, projects proposed by principal H. M. Holmes. In late October the association reported on the drive, and Superintendent A. W. Honeycutt praised the school's two new departments, home economics and manual training. People: Charles C. Craig, Harold M. Holmes, Allison W. HoneycuttThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 24, 1937, p. 6
  8. The Orange County Training School graduates its largest class, fourteen Chapel Hill's Black high school held its commencement before a crowded auditorium; eight seniors spoke on the school's activities in place of a guest speaker. The Weekly reported 14 graduates, the largest class in the school's history. People: R. E. Coker, Harold M. Holmes, Allison W. HoneycuttThe Chapel Hill Weekly, June 3, 1938, p. 5
  9. A town meeting hears a federal housing official on clearing Chapel Hill's slums Called by the Chapel Hill Housing Committee to discuss the bad housing in the western part of town, mostly the homes of Black families, a town meeting at the Town Hall on March 11 heard Langdon Post of the U. S. Housing Authority explain how a slum-clearance project could be started, with modern four-room cottages renting for $9 to $12 a month. Black residents made up most of the audience, Training School principal H. M. Holmes and Charles Craig spoke for them, and the visitors had toured the slum areas of Chapel Hill and Carrboro that day. People: Joseph Hyde Pratt, Charles C. Craig, Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, March 15, 1940, p. 1
  10. The Orange County Training School opens with a record enrollment The Black elementary and high school at the north end of Church Street opened on September 6 with a record first-day enrollment of 532, 369 in the elementary grades and 163 in high school, 34 more than the year before. Principal H. M. Holmes counted 540 by midweek, and two weeks later the school reported 659 pupils; new teachers included Harry N. Simms, a Tuskegee graduate, in industrial arts. People: Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 13, 1940, p. 5
  11. Black citizens of Chapel Hill campaign for funds and labor for the Negro Community Center Eight committees from Black social, church, lodge and labor groups began a house-to-house canvass for the Negro Community Center, taking pledges in cash or in work to be done when needed, and set a report meeting at the Orange County Training School for March 4. A white citizens' committee published a plan to raise the remaining $9,000 of the $26,000 project. People: Joseph Hyde Pratt, Paul W. Wager, Charles C. Craig, Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, February 21, 1941, p. 1
  12. Chapel Hill's schools report fall enrollment, with 545 at the Orange County Training School Chapel Hill's elementary school opened the year with 379 pupils, 30 fewer than a year before, and the Orange County Training School, the town's school for Black pupils, with 545, down 15, while the high school enrolled 437, more than at the same point in 1940. The schools added a full-time arts and crafts teacher, Edgar Thorne, and a vocational agriculture teacher. People: Harold M. Holmes, Allison W. HoneycuttSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, September 26, 1941, p. 1
Show all 24 dated events
  1. Boy Scout Troop 107 is organized at the Orange County Training School Boy Scout Troop 107 was organized at the Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's school for Black pupils, with nine boys who had passed the Tenderfoot tests after five months of meetings. William Weaver was scoutmaster, with Charlie Maddox, Sr., Rev. J. H. Lightsey and principal H. M. Holmes on the troop committee, and installation services were set for November 2 at the C.M.E. church on West Rosemary Street. People: Harold M. HolmesSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 31, 1941, p. 2
  2. Chapel Hill and Bingham townships register for sugar ration books Teachers and other volunteers issued sugar ration books at the schools, white residents at the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, White Cross and Orange Grove schools and Black residents at the Orange County Training School and six rural Black schools. W. J. Boger directed the work at the elementary school, H. M. Holmes at the Training School and Mrs. L. R. Sturdivant at Carrboro, and the crowds were so steady that registration was extended through May 8. People: Moody W. Durham, Harold M. Holmes, Allison W. HoneycuttThe Chapel Hill Weekly, May 8, 1942, p. 1
  3. The Orange County Training School adds an eighth grade and has no ninth grade for the year Under the state's change to a twelve-year school program, all of the Black school's 1942 seventh-grade graduates moved into a new eighth grade of 43 pupils instead of entering high school, so the Orange County Training School had no ninth grade in 1942-43. The school opened September 3 under principal H. M. Holmes, with an enrollment the Weekly reported as 512. People: Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 18, 1942, p. 2
  4. Volunteers issue War Ration Book No. 2 at the schools of Chapel Hill and Bingham townships About 250 volunteers, most of them women, gave some 3,000 hours to registering residents of Chapel Hill and Bingham townships for War Ration Book No. 2. Registration ran at the Chapel Hill elementary school and at Carrboro, White Cross and Orange Grove schools, and Black residents of Chapel Hill registered at the Orange County Training School. People: Moody W. Durham, Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, March 5, 1943, p. 1
  5. Orange County Training School reports its war work Principal H. M. Holmes reported that the Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's Black school, had collected 22,075 pounds of scrap in two drives, sold war stamps through its Student Council, and run defense courses for adults since December 1941. Its New Farmers of America club gathered 10,000 pounds of scrap in Thanksgiving week. People: Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, February 26, 1943, p. 6
  6. Black residents of Chapel Hill launch a Victory Garden campaign Black residents launched a Victory Garden campaign meant to reach every Black family in Chapel Hill and Bingham townships, organized at a meeting called by Supt. A. W. Honeycutt and principal H. M. Holmes. Students in the Training School's Young Farmers of America and Excella clubs were to work a school garden on a plowed field beside the school. People: R. D. Smith, Harold M. Holmes, Allison W. HoneycuttThe Chapel Hill Weekly, March 19, 1943, p. 1
  7. Black Chapel Hill organizes its own Citizens Service Corps The newly organized Citizens Service Corps of Chapel Hill's Black community held its first meeting in the Orange County Training School library under chairman Mrs. M. Norma Snipes, naming chairmen for information, war stamp sales, hospital service, child care and the block system. Fifty-five members were to receive Defense Council awards at the school's commencement. People: M. Norma Snipes, Frances Hargraves, Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, May 21, 1943, p. 1
  8. The Orange County Training School opens its fall term in a repaired building The Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's Black school, opened on September 1 after summer work in which classrooms and the auditorium were painted, a workroom was cut through for the library with labor given by Charles Craig, and termite-damaged timbers were replaced. Four teachers left over the summer and four new ones joined a faculty headed by H. M. Holmes. People: Charles C. Craig, Harold M. HolmesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 10, 1943, p. 6
  9. Black citizens of Chapel Hill organize their own Third War Loan campaign Black residents met at the Orange County Training School to plan an appeal to the Black population to buy War Bonds, with H. M. Holmes, Kenneth Jones and Eugene White as their committee. At the bond rally in Memorial Hall on September 14, where a section was reserved for Black people, Jones spoke for the Black community, saying they were doing the very best they could. People: Harold M. Holmes, Kenneth JonesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, September 10, 1943, p. 1
  10. The aldermen and school board hire an attendance officer for the Orange County Training School At a joint meeting the aldermen and the school board decided to employ an attendance officer for the Orange County Training School after principal H. M. Holmes reported 276 absences in the high school and 835 in the elementary grades, with truancy behind 36 per cent of the lost elementary days. The $300 cost was split between the school board, the town and, by request, Carrboro, and the school's four-member Black advisory committee came to support the plan. People: Harold M. Holmes, Kenneth JonesThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 19, 1943, p. 1
  11. Chapel Hill's wartime nurseries for Black children carry the name of Harold M. Holmes The federally aided day nurseries for the children of Black working mothers in Chapel Hill were known as the Harold M. Holmes nursery schools, one in the Masonic building on West Rosemary Street and one at Sunset and Brooks streets, caring for about 50 children.Search the index · The News of Orange County: For Chapel Hill Nursery Schools (December 7, 1944, p. 5)
  12. D. M. Jarnagin succeeds H. M. Holmes as principal of Orange County Training School D. M. Jarnagin, former principal of Hawkins High School in Warrenton, took charge of Orange County Training School in Chapel Hill at the opening of the 1944-45 school year, filling the vacancy left by Harold M. Holmes. Four other new teachers joined the faculty despite the wartime teacher shortage. People: Harold M. HolmesLincoln High School student newspaper (Chapel Hill), December 1944, p. 1

Places in this person’s story

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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 Harold M. Holmes, 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 Harold M. Holmes. 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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC
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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

NC Cardinal UNC

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