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Local figure

R. D. Smith

R. D. Smith taught and was an assistant principal in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools for more than thirty years and served more than twenty years on Chapel Hill's town board. Smith Middle School is named for him and his wife, Euzelle. He died in April 2016, soon after turning 98.

Source: Chapelboro: Former Educator and Chapel Hill Alderman R.D. Smith Passes Away

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

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 6 dated events in the chronology →

  1. R. D. Smith is named to a new Chapel Hill Planning Board After the whole Planning Board resigned in June 1961 in protest at the aldermen's handling of its recommendations, the aldermen named five members of a new board, among them R. D. Smith, the vocational agriculture teacher at Lincoln High School. The county commissioners named the other five.Search the index · DigitalNC: Chapel Hill Weekly, July 3, 1961, p. 1
  2. Chapel Hill aldermen approve an open housing ordinance 3 to 2 on first reading Weeks after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. and a petition signed by about 2,200 people, the Board of Aldermen voted 3 to 2 for a local ban on discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. The margin fell short of the two-thirds needed to pass on first reading, so the measure went to a second vote. People: Sandy McClamroch, R. D. SmithDigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, April 28, 1968, page 3
  3. Howard Lee takes the oath as mayor of Chapel Hill at Town Hall More than 140 people packed the second-floor room of Town Hall for the 7:30 p.m. meeting at which town clerk Roberts swore in Lee after outgoing mayor Sandy McClamroch reviewed his ten years in office. New aldermen Joe Nassif, Mary Prothro, George Coxhead and Ross Scroggs were sworn in, and Lee's first board elected David Ethridge mayor pro tem. People: Howard N. Lee, Sandy McClamroch, R. D. SmithDigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, May 14, 1969, page 1 (OCR text)
  4. Mayor Howard Lee leads a memorial march for James Cates About 65 people joined a memorial march for James Cates led by Mayor Howard Lee and Alderman R. D. Smith, four days after the killing. People: Howard N. Lee, R. D. SmithDigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, December 1, 1970, page 1
  5. Joe Straley is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council In the municipal election, newcomer Joe Straley won one of four council seats with 2,796 votes, joining James C. Wallace, R. D. Smith and Jonathan Howes and edging out Joe Herzenberg. He was sworn in for a four-year term in December. People: Jonathan Howes, R. D. SmithSearch the index · North Carolina Newspapers: The Daily Tar Heel, November 7, 1979, page 1
  6. R. D. and Euzelle P. Smith Middle School opens A new middle school named for R. D. Smith and his wife Euzelle, longtime residents of the Pottersfield neighborhood who taught in the local schools for decades, opened in 2001.Search the index · Marian Cheek Jackson Center, From the Rock Wall: R.D. and Euzelle P. Smith Middle School

Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as R. D. Smith, 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 Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools

These works give background on Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools, the wider story this person is part of (62 works in all). Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

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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