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School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1954–1970

Lincoln High, Cedar Grove School and the staged integration of the local schools.

In briefIn 1956 and 1957 Preston Weaver applied to move his son from Northside School to the white Chapel Hill Elementary, and in 1958 the county school board refused applications from the Vickers and Walden families for places at the new white Carrboro Elementary. After the school board refused in 1959 to admit ten-year-old Stanley Vickers to Carrboro Elementary, his parents sued, and their 1961 win in federal court set the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools on the course to desegregation. In 1966 all-Black Lincoln High merged into Chapel Hill High, and Lincoln's name, colors and mascot were left behind. In the fall of 1969 Black students protested at the town's junior and senior high schools. In September about 150 walked out of Guy B. Phillips Junior High for about an hour over the choice of cheerleaders, and the principal said the school was weighing a three-to-one white-to-Black quota for all school organizations. In November the school board reprimanded, but kept on, a Chapel Hill High teacher who Black students said had called a Black student a racial slur. On November 11 about 200 Black students presented demands to the principal, among them more Black teachers and an Afro-American studies department, and the day ended in broken windows, injuries and police. The next night about 500 Black parents and students took their grievances to the board at First Baptist Church, and on November 17 the board promised a biracial grievance committee and renewed efforts to hire Black teachers, and Black students ended their boycott of Chapel Hill High. In February 1970 the city schools reported every school racially balanced, with Black enrollment of 22 to 36 percent, while only about 12 percent of teachers were Black.

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The 1951 Lincoln High School building on South Merritt Mill Road
The 1951 Lincoln High School building on South Merritt Mill Road

In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 74 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Brown v. Board places local school segregation under constitutional challenge On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregated public schools unconstitutional, putting Orange County's separate schools for Black and white children under legal challenge. Four days later Chapel Hill Mayor Edwin Lanier urged gradual adjustment, and school board chairman Carl Smith predicted little trouble in complying but expected high schools to be affected most. People: Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner) Place: Countywide · Also named: Edwin LanierChapel Hill Weekly (May 21, 1954): Leaders Here Ask for Calm Evaluation of Court Ruling
  2. Chapel Hill-Carrboro churches name a committee to help schools desegregate peacefully Two weeks after the Brown decision, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Ministerial Association set up a steering committee to study how the churches could help bring a peaceful transition to non-segregated schools. Its members were the Rev. Charles Jones, Mrs. Harold Walters, George Esser Jr., the Rev. T. P. Duhart and Mrs. J. Snipes. People: George H. Esser Jr., Charles M. Jones Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Charles Jones, T. P. Duhart, Mrs. Harold WaltersSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 3, 1954, p. 4
  3. The Lincoln Echo welcomes the Supreme Court's school desegregation decision In its first issue of the 1954-55 year, Lincoln High School's student paper ran an editorial welcoming the Supreme Court's May 1954 decision against segregated public schools. The editorial said segregation had long denied Black students the chance to progress and urged Lincoln students to prove themselves equal to the opportunity integration would bring. Place: Lincoln High School, Chapel HillLincoln High School student newspaper (Chapel Hill), October 1954, p. 2
  4. Chapel Hill school board pledges to comply with Brown "to the best of our ability" Under chairman Carl Smith, the Chapel Hill school board unanimously resolved to comply with the Supreme Court's integration ruling to the best of its ability while operating its schools under the state's school laws, keeping existing assignment practices for 1955-56. People: Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner) Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardSearch the index · Chapel Hill News Leader (DigitalNC): Racial Stand Is Taken In School Board Policy, August 18, 1955, p. 6
  5. The Negro Men's Civic Club asks for a Black member on the Chapel Hill school board As the board took up a successor to chairman Carl Smith, who had resigned effective July 1, the club presented a petition with several hundred signatures asking it to name either the pastor of St. Paul's A.M.E. Church or C. F. Williams of the Negro schools advisory committee to serve until the spring election. The board instead named druggist William L. Sloan to the seat. People: Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner) Place: Chapel Hill school board, Chapel Hill · Also named: C. F. Williams, William L. SloanSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 19, 1956, p. 8
  6. Preston R. Weaver applies to move his son from Northside School to the white Chapel Hill Elementary School Weaver, owner of Weaver's Shoe Shop on West Franklin Street, had written the Chapel Hill school board asking how his son, who had finished the third grade at Northside, could enroll at Chapel Hill Elementary; the board sent him its change-of-school application and rules with almost no comment, and he was filling out the form on July 16. One of the Black parents who had sued the board over unequal school facilities, Weaver said he was acting on his own and not for any person or group. Place: Chapel Hill Elementary School, Chapel Hill · Also named: Preston R. Weaver · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 19, 1956, p. 4
  7. Chapel Hill school board keeps segregated pupil assignments for 1957-58 The Chapel Hill school board announced a resolution assigning pupils for 1957-58 to the schools they had attended the year before, which kept the town's schools racially segregated. Parents could ask for a transfer during a ten-day period, June 1 to 10, and Northside pupils promoted to the seventh grade were assigned to Lincoln High. Place: Chapel Hill public schools, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 30, 1957, p. 10
  8. Orange County Patriots ask Preston Weaver to withdraw his transfer application A letter signed only by the executive committee of the Orange County Patriots of North Carolina asked Preston Weaver to withdraw his application to place his son in Chapel Hill's elementary school for white children, arguing that good race relations rested on local custom more than on constitutional rights. Weaver said he threw the letter away and would not change his plans; W. C. George, a past state president of the Patriots, said he had seen it before it was sent but would not name its writer. People: W. C. George (Wesley Critz George) Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Preston WeaverThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 27, 1957, p. 1
  9. Preston Weaver applies to move his son to Chapel Hill Elementary School Preston Weaver, a Black shoe repairman in Chapel Hill and the father of nine, formally applied to the Chapel Hill school board to have his son, who had finished the fourth grade at Northside School, admitted to the fifth grade at Chapel Hill Elementary School, then open only to white pupils. The board was investigating the application at the end of June. Place: Chapel Hill Elementary School, Chapel Hill · Also named: Preston Weaver · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school board, Northside SchoolThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 27, 1957, p. 1
  10. Black Carrboro parents apply to send their child to the new white Carrboro school Thomas Lee and Lattice Vickers of Carrboro, whose children attended Northside, Chapel Hill's school for Black pupils, applied to have a child assigned to the new Carrboro Elementary School, built for white pupils. The county board had put off their June request for assignment forms on June 30, and on July 29 Superintendent G. Paul Carr told the board the application had come in and would be heard August 11; he refused to tell a reporter how many he had received. People: G. Paul Carr Place: Carrboro Elementary School, Carrboro · Also named: Thomas Lee Vickers, Lattice Vickers, Thomas LeeThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 31, 1958, p. 1
  11. The county school board denies Stanley Vickers a place at the white Carrboro school The Orange County Board of Education turned down the Vickers family's application, the only one it had received from Black parents, for their son to attend the new Carrboro school. The board cited ambiguity in the form, which also named Chapel Hill Elementary, and the parents' absence from the hearing, and said that after the August 5 merger vote the boy could attend Chapel Hill schools without tuition. People: Stanley Vickers Place: Old Courthouse, Hillsborough · Also named: Thomas Lee Vickers, Lattice Vickers · Also mentions: Carrboro school, Chapel Hill schoolsThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 14, 1958, p. 1
  12. The Vickers family appeals and asks the county to run its schools without segregation In a letter to the county superintendent, Thomas Lee and Lattice Vickers appealed the denial for their son Stanley B. Vickers, 10, who lived a block from Carrboro Elementary but was assigned to Northside Elementary in Chapel Hill, more than a mile away. They also appealed the board's 'failure and refusal' to operate the county schools on a non-segregated basis. People: Stanley Vickers Place: Carrboro · Also named: Thomas Lee Vickers, Lattice Vickers, Thomas LeeThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 21, 1958, p. 1
Show all 74 dated events
  1. The county school board denies a Black Carrboro couple's request to send four children to Carrboro Elementary The Orange County Board of Education turned down Darnell and Clara Mae Walden's request to move their four foster children from Chapel Hill's Northside School to the new all-white Carrboro Elementary School, which they said was a block from their Carr Street home. The Rev. Charles M. Jones and Preston Weaver, who had twice asked the Chapel Hill board to integrate, attended with the couple. People: Charles M. Jones Place: Orange County Board of Education, Hillsboro; Carr Street, Carrboro · Also named: Darnell Walden, Clara Mae Walden, Preston Weaver · Also mentions: Carrboro Elementary SchoolThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 4, 1958, p. 1
  2. The county school board denies the Vickers family's appeal for a place at Carrboro Elementary After a hearing held under the state's pupil assignment law, the Orange County Board of Education denied Lee and Lattice Vickers's appeal to move their child from Northside School to the all-white Carrboro Elementary School. Their Durham attorney, whom the paper calls C. O. Pierson, had handled most NAACP school cases in the area; Carl Braden of the Southern Conference Educational Fund also attended. People: Charles M. Jones Place: Orange County Board of Education, Hillsboro · Also named: Lee Vickers, Lattice Vickers, Carl Braden · Also mentions: Carrboro Elementary School, Northside SchoolThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 11, 1958, p. 1
  3. The county school board denies the Walden family's appeal after a hearing For the second time in two weeks the Orange County Board of Education rejected a Black Carrboro family's appeal for places at the all-white Carrboro Elementary School, ruling that the Waldens' original reasons, distance and Chapel Hill tuition, no longer held. The paper said the two couples now had to go to court if they wanted to press their claims. People: Alexander H. "Sandy" Graham Place: Orange County Board of Education, Hillsboro · Also named: Darnell Walden, Clara Mae Walden · Also mentions: Carrboro Elementary SchoolThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 18, 1958, p. 1
  4. Chapel Hill district voters elect the Rev. J. R. Manley to the city school board In the election for three seats on the Chapel Hill City Board of Education, the Rev. J. R. Manley, a Black minister and pastor of the First Baptist Church, led the field of seven with 1,125 votes, and incumbents Henry Brandis Jr. and Grey Culbreth won the other two seats. The vote covered the Chapel Hill administrative unit and the Carrboro school attendance area. Place: Chapel Hill administrative school unit and Carrboro attendance area · Also named: J. R. Manley, Henry Brandis Jr., Grey Culbreth · Also mentions: Carrboro schoolThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 7, 1959, p. 1
  5. 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. People: Stanley Vickers Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Thomas Lee Vickers, Lattice Vickers, Thomas Lee · Also mentions: Carrboro Elementary School, Northside Elementary SchoolSearch the index · Caselaw Access Project: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97 (M.D.N.C. 1961)
  6. 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. People: Stanley Vickers, Henry P. Brandis Jr. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Thomas Lee Vickers, Lattice Vickers, Henry Brandis · Also mentions: Carrboro Elementary SchoolThe Chapel Hill Weekly, August 6, 1959, p. 1 · Also: Justia: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97
  7. Brandis returns for the Vickers hearing, then leaves the Chapel Hill school board Brandis withdrew his August 3 resignation so he could sit at the board's hearing on Stanley Vickers's transfer request on August 31. He resigned again after that meeting, and the board named a committee to find his successor. People: Henry P. Brandis Jr., Stanley Vickers Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 31, 1959, p. 1
  8. J. Walter Clark Jr. of Carrboro is elected to the Chapel Hill school board in Henry Brandis's seat The board chose J. Walter Clark Jr., past chairman of the Carrboro School Advisory Committee, to fill the place Henry P. Brandis Jr. gave up after the board again refused Stanley Vickers a transfer. Under board policy he was to serve until the next district election; he was sworn in on October 5. People: Henry P. Brandis Jr. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: J. Walter Clark Jr., Stanley VickersThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 17, 1959, p. 8
  9. Chapel Hill-Carrboro ministers endorse the school board's first-grade desegregation policy Speaking for the Ministerial Association of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, vice president the Rev. Loren Mead of the Church of the Holy Family told the school board the ministers backed its policy to look with favor on first-grade reassignment requests in 1960 and offered to help prepare public opinion, citing the association's interracial summer Bible school. Board chairman J. Kempton Jones said the board would consult them if it named a committee. Place: Chapel Hill school board meeting, Chapel Hill · Also named: Loren Mead, J. Kempton JonesThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 8, 1959, p. 8
  10. James McBride Dabbs speaks to the Chapel Hill Fellowship for School Integration The South Carolina author of The Southern Heritage told the group that a South that had learned to accept defeat was well equipped to build good relations between Black and white people, and set North Carolina's modest steps toward school desegregation against the earlier stands of South Carolina and Virginia. The Fellowship wrote to the News the next week that the Chapel Hill board's first-grade plan did not by itself comply with the 1954 Brown decision. Place: St. Paul AME Church, Franklin Street at Merritt Mill Road · Also named: James McBride DabbsThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), November 5, 1959, p. 23
  11. Citizens groups press the Chapel Hill school board to adopt the Quaker plan In a two-hour public hearing, the Chapel Hill Friends, twenty ministers, the League of Women Voters, Community Church members and the board's own Citizens Advisory Committee urged the school board to assign first graders by geographic district rather than leave Black families to apply for transfer. The board sent the plan to its redistricting committee, and the News judged a change unlikely. People: Dudley Dewitt Carroll Place: Chapel Hill school board, Chapel HillThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 4, 1960, p. 10
  12. The Vickers family files its federal suit against the Chapel Hill City Board of Education Suing through his parents, Stanley Vickers asked the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina to declare his right to attend the public schools without racial discrimination. After the board turned down his June 1960 application to Chapel Hill Junior High, the complaint was amended to seek that school, and the case was tried on October 5, 1960. People: Stanley Vickers Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Thomas Lee Vickers, Lattice VickersSearch the index · Caselaw Access Project: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97 (M.D.N.C. 1961)
  13. Chapel Hill residents organize the Vickers Appeal Fund Supporters in Chapel Hill organized the Vickers Appeal Fund to back Stanley Vickers's federal desegregation suit against the Chapel Hill school board. The News saw its main purpose as giving legal weight to the suit's claim that the community supported desegregation. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Stanley Vickers · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 25, 1960, p. 9
  14. Federal court refuses to throw out the Vickers school suit but drops the board members as defendants Ruling on the Chapel Hill school board's motions, Judge Edwin Stanley declined to dismiss Stanley Vickers's desegregation suit, though he said class actions had not been upheld in the circuit, and he dismissed the suit against the six board members as individuals. He gave the board until May 5 to answer, which meant the boy would not enter all-white Carrboro Elementary that year. Place: U.S. District Court, Durham · Also named: Edwin Stanley, Stanley Vickers · Also mentions: Chapel Hill schoolThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 7, 1960, p. 10
  15. The League of Women Voters publishes a study of pupil assignment in the Chapel Hill schools The Chapel Hill League of Women Voters printed 1,500 copies of Facts on Pupil Assignment in the Chapel Hill School District, a year-long study, and gave them to churches, the Community Council and school board members. The seven-page booklet set out the Supreme Court school rulings, the state pupil assignment acts, the board's policy and the plans offered by local groups, with a summary of desegregation so far in Chapel Hill. Place: Chapel HillThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 19, 1960, p. 6
  16. The Chapel Hill school board keeps its pupil assignment policy and rejects the Quaker Plan By a four-to-two vote the Chapel Hill school board kept its policy letting first graders seek reassignment to the nearest school, which in practice kept the schools segregated unless Black parents applied for transfers. It rejected a minority report by board member the Rev. J. R. Manley urging the Quaker Plan of geographic first-grade assignment, which Manley said placed an undue burden on Black parents; Charles Milner voted with him. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: J. R. Manley, Charles Milner · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 26, 1960, p. 14
  17. Chapel Hill school board admits its first Black pupils to a white school, three first graders at Estes Hills Elementary Acting under its new proximity policy, the board voted unanimously to grant three of twelve Black reassignment applications for the 1960-61 first grade at previously all-white Estes Hills Elementary School. Applications to transfer to the white junior high school, including Stanley Vickers's, were refused. People: Stanley Vickers Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Estes Hills Elementary SchoolCivil Rights Movement Archive: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools Southern States 1962 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)
  18. The Chapel Hill school board turns down five Black pupils' appeals for the white junior high At a formal hearing the Chapel Hill school board rejected the appeals of five Black pupils assigned to Lincoln who sought transfer to the white Chapel Hill Junior High School, mostly because it was nearer their homes. The board had granted three first-grade transfers to Estes Hills a month earlier, and the News expected the denials to end up in federal court. Place: Chapel Hill High School auditorium, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school board, Estes HillsThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 28, 1960, p. 12
  19. The Vickers suit is amended to seek a place at Chapel Hill Junior High NAACP lawyer Conrad O. Pearson filed a supplemental complaint in Stanley Vickers's federal desegregation suit, saying the Carrboro pupil, now a rising seventh grader, had been assigned to all-Black Lincoln Junior High because of his race and asking for his transfer to Chapel Hill Junior High. On August 17 the Chapel Hill school board moved to strike much of it as an improper class action. Place: Federal court, Middle District of North Carolina · Also named: Conrad O. Pearson, Edwin Stanley, Stanley Vickers · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 18, 1960, p. 1
  20. Three Black first graders enter Estes Hills Elementary School On the opening day of the Chapel Hill schools three Black first graders enrolled at Estes Hills Elementary School under the first-grade assignment policy the board had adopted a year before; the News called them the first of their race to enroll in the local system on a desegregated basis. The paper reported that the day passed quietly, with no protest. Place: Estes Hills Elementary School, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill schoolsThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 8, 1960, p. 1
  21. Northside School's PTA opposes a new site for a Black elementary school At a special meeting the Northside School Parent-Teacher Association voted overwhelmingly against the Chapel Hill school board's plan to build a new Black elementary school on South Merritt Mill Road across from Lincoln High School, saying it would prolong segregation, and asked that the school be built at the Northside site instead. Dr. Richard Peters, whose citizens group had proposed an eight- to ten-room wing at Northside, attended by invitation. Place: Northside School, Chapel Hill · Also named: Richard Peters · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school, Lincoln High SchoolThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 1, 1960, p. 12
  22. Final arguments are heard in Stanley Vickers's suit against the Chapel Hill schools Judge Edwin Stanley heard final arguments in federal court in Durham on the two-year-old case seeking Vickers's transfer from Lincoln Junior High to the white Chapel Hill Junior High. School board attorney J. Q. LeGrand called the case weak and said the board had followed the Pupil Assignment Act; New York attorney Derrick Bell argued that geography played little part in the board's assignments. People: Stanley Vickers Place: U.S. District Court, Durham (Chapel Hill school case) · Also named: J. Q. LeGrand, Derrick Bell, Edwin StanleyThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 22, 1960, p. 3
  23. Carrboro Elementary School enrolls its first Black pupils Eight Black first graders were assigned to Carrboro Elementary under the 1961 zoning map, the school Stanley Vickers had been refused two years earlier. All but two requested and received transfers back to the Black school, so two Black children enrolled at Carrboro that fall. People: Stanley Vickers Place: CarrboroCivil Rights Movement Archive: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools Southern States 1962 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)
  24. Chapel Hill assigns first graders by residence zone and becomes the first North Carolina district with no all-white school A school board elected on a desegregation platform took office in July 1961. At its first meeting, on Monday, July 3, it voted four to one to assign first graders by residence zone, and on Friday, July 7 it approved a single first-grade attendance map, assigning 24 Black children to Glenwood, 10 to Estes Hills and 8 to Carrboro Elementary after the zones were redrawn to reduce Carrboro's share. When school opened, every school in the district had at least one Black pupil for the first time in the state's history, and no incidents were reported. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Estes HillsCivil Rights Movement Archive: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools Southern States 1962 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights) · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 6, 1961, p. 3; The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 13, 1961, p. 1
  25. The first Black students enter the formerly white Chapel Hill junior-senior high school on Franklin Street For 1961-62 the board granted two of three Black applications to the white junior high school and later reassigned a fourth child who had moved into the district, while the federal court ordered Stanley Vickers admitted to the eighth grade there. Sheila Florence, who described herself as one of the first four Black students and who graduated from Chapel Hill High School on Franklin Street in 1965, was one of them, and Eugene Hines was another Black student in the school. People: Stanley Vickers, Sheila Florence Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Eugene Hines · Also mentions: Chapel Hill High School, Franklin StreetCivil Rights Movement Archive: Civil Rights U.S.A., Public Schools Southern States 1962 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights)
  26. The Chapel Hill school board admits a Black eighth grader to the white junior high and fixes first-grade districts At a special meeting that ran past midnight, the board voted four to one to transfer a 14-year-old Black eighth grader from Lincoln Junior High to Chapel Hill Junior High, the school nearest his home, and turned down two other Black pupils' requests as not for the good of the child. It also fixed the first-grade attendance areas under its new geographic plan, which would place about 40 Black first graders in mostly white schools and about 14 white children at Northside. Place: Chapel HillThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 13, 1961, p. 3
  27. Thirteen Chapel Hill ministers publicly back the school board's desegregation plan Thirteen white and Black ministers, nearly all the active local clergy, and the clerk of the Friends Meeting issued an open letter commending the school board's geographic first-grade plan as lawful and in keeping with their faith, and asking the mayors, police and citizens of Chapel Hill and Carrboro not to tolerate interference with the board's decisions. People: Charles M. Jones Place: Chapel Hill and CarrboroThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 13, 1961, p. 22
  28. Opponents of Chapel Hill's first-grade desegregation plan organize at Carrboro School Residents opposed to the school board's geographic assignment of first graders met at Carrboro School to set up a regular organization, after choosing temporary leaders earlier in the week; The News called it a segregationist group. A week later the paper reported citizens' groups formed both for and against the plan, among them a Glenwood-area petition asking the board to wait and see. Place: Carrboro School, CarrboroThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 13, 1961, p. 10
  29. Federal court rules Chapel Hill denied Stanley Vickers a junior high transfer because of his race Chief Judge Edwin M. Stanley of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina held that the Chapel Hill City Board of Education had refused Vickers reassignment to all-white Chapel Hill Junior High School on account of race and that he was entitled to be admitted there for the 1961-62 school year. The suit had been filed on February 2, 1960 and tried on October 5, 1960. People: Stanley Vickers Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Lattice Vickers, Thomas Lee Vickers, Edwin M. Stanley · Also mentions: Chapel Hill Junior High SchoolJustia: Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education, 196 F. Supp. 97 (M.D.N.C. 1961)
  30. 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. People: Nate Davis Place: Chapel Hill Junior High School, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Franklin StreetSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Oral History Interview with Nate Davis, February 6, 2001 (K-0538), transcript
  31. Chapel Hill school board assigns all six elementary grades by residence Extending the first-grade plan of 1961, the board assigned pupils in grades one through six to the school serving the attendance area where they lived, under five elementary areas. Parents could ask for reassignment, and the board said it would grant requests when a child would be in a school where most pupils were of the other race or that had mainly served the other race. Place: Chapel Hill School DistrictThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 19, 1962, p. 20
  32. Chapel Hill opens its special education classes to pupils of both races For the coming year the school board set up four special education classes, two at Carrboro Elementary and two at Northside, each open to pupils from anywhere in the district until full. The News called it the complete end of legal segregation at that one level. Place: Carrboro Elementary and Northside schools, Chapel Hill School DistrictThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 19, 1962, p. 1
  33. Chapel Hill school board grants 116 reassignments, sending eight Black pupils to Chapel Hill Junior High The board granted 116 of the 190 reassignment requests filed under its new plan, most of them moving white pupils assigned to Northside and Frank Porter Graham to Carrboro and some Black pupils in mainly white areas to Northside and Frank Porter Graham. It let eight Black children attend Chapel Hill Junior High because they lived closer to it than to Lincoln, denied 28 requests and redrew the Carrboro attendance-area lines. Place: Chapel Hill School District · Also named: Frank Porter GrahamThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 16, 1962, p. 8
  34. Chapel Hill school board denies the reassignment appeals of Black pupils represented by Floyd McKissick The board turned down the appeals of 14 pupils who had been refused transfers under its new plan. Appeals for Black pupils whose parents were represented by NAACP attorney Floyd McKissick were denied unanimously, as were those of white pupils at the south end of Smith Level Road, and federal court action for at least five of the Black children was threatened. Place: Chapel Hill High School auditorium, Chapel Hill · Also named: Floyd McKissick · Also mentions: Smith Level RoadThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 20, 1962, p. 18
  35. Chapel Hill counts 35 Black pupils in mainly white schools and no white pupils in its Black schools As of September 12, 35 Black pupils attended four predominantly white schools in the Chapel Hill system, two fewer than the year before despite geographic assignment in all elementary grades. No white pupils were understood to be at Lincoln, Frank Porter Graham or Northside; white children assigned to the last two had transferred out under the board's policy. Place: Chapel Hill School District · Also named: Frank Porter GrahamThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 13, 1962, p. 1
  36. Mrs. Daniel A. Okun takes over the special education class at the all-Black Frank Porter Graham School Shortly after the fall term began, Mrs. Daniel A. Okun, who is white, took over the special education class at Chapel Hill's new Frank Porter Graham School for Black pupils when the teacher resigned. Superintendent Howard Thompson called the hiring routine; the News said she was believed to be the first white teacher in a Black elementary school in the state. Place: Frank Porter Graham School, Chapel Hill · Also named: Mrs. Daniel A. Okun, Howard ThompsonThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 18, 1962, p. 23
  37. The Chapel Hill Fellowship for School Integration starts an evening study hall for Black pupils The fellowship began a volunteer-taught study hall at St. Paul's Church for Black students attending Chapel Hill Junior High. By January 1963 the school board let it move to the high school on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, open to all races from the sixth grade up, and the Friends Meeting added a remedial English class. Place: St. Paul's Church, Chapel HillThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 17, 1963, p. 18
  38. The state turns down the only Orange County request for a Pearsall Plan tuition grant A Carrboro father, the only person in the county to seek a private-school tuition grant under the Pearsall Plan because a school had been desegregated, was refused by the state even though the local school board had endorsed his petition. His children had attended the Twaddell School in Durham the year before, and by October 1962 he was moving to Chatham County. Place: CarrboroThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 4, 1962, p. 1
  39. Orange High School begins desegregation Tonya and Narviar Cathcart entered Orange High School after their family’s transfer petition was approved, beginning the school's desegregation. Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Tonya Cathcart, Narviar Cathcart · Also mentions: Orange High SchoolOrange County Historical Museum
  40. The Chapel Hill school board adopts a pupil assignment policy that makes no mention of race The board's 1963-64 policy assigned pupils by where they lived, available classroom space and reasonably equal class sizes, which the News described as basic freedom of choice subject to space, without any reference to race. Under the year's geographic plan about 40 Black pupils were attending mostly white schools, fewer than the year before. Place: Chapel HillThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 14, 1963, p. 16
  41. Seven Black pupils refused transfers in 1962 are moved to mostly white Chapel Hill schools All seven Black pupils whom the Chapel Hill school board had refused the summer before to reassign to predominantly white schools were granted the transfers, ending NAACP attorney Floyd McKissick's appeal before it was perfected. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Floyd McKissick · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 14, 1963, p. 1
  42. Orange County Board of Education closes Caldwell School In spring 1961 the county board weighed its attorney's proposal to close White Cross and Caldwell schools. In March 1963, in the consolidation that came with the new Orange High School, it eliminated the Caldwell district and closed Caldwell School, a school for white pupils built in 1925; that May Caldwell pupils were moved into the Aycock district, and other parts of the old district joined Cameron Park. A sale of the building fell through in 1963 because the board could not give clear title, and it was not sold until the 1970s. Place: Caldwell · Also mentions: Caldwell School, Cameron Park, Orange High SchoolThe Chapel Hill Weekly, May 8, 1963, p. 2 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, May 1, 1961, p. 1; The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 6, 1961, p. 6; February 4, 1963 resolution; Chapel Hill Weekly, November 6, 1963, p. 14; Open Orange: Caldwell School
  43. The Chapel Hill Fellowship for School Integration raises scholarships for a new preschool summer class After the Chapel Hill Board of Education added a preschool readiness class to its summer session for the first time, the interracial Fellowship for School Integration began a fund drive for scholarships covering all or part of the $45 tuition. The Fellowship, active since 1954, wanted Black and white children to meet before first grade. Place: Chapel HillThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 2, 1963, p. 4
  44. About 50 Lincoln High pupils walk out in a boycott calling for one merged high school On Friday, February 14, about 50 pupils walked out of Chapel Hill's all-Black Lincoln High School in a boycott sponsored by the Chapel Hill Freedom Committee, whose chairman John Dunne called Lincoln inferior and asked that it be merged with Chapel Hill Senior High. Superintendent Howard Thompson denied the charge point by point, and by the following Monday 25 pupils were still out. People: John Dunne Place: Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill · Also named: Howard ThompsonThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 20, 1964, p. 5
  45. The Chapel Hill school board chooses an eight-room wing at Carrboro School over enlarging Frank Graham School The Chapel Hill school board decided at its February 24 meeting to add eight classrooms to Carrboro Elementary School, following the building's original plans, rather than 12 rooms at the three-year-old all-Black Frank Graham School on Smith Level Road. Most of the 50 patrons at a January 27 hearing had favored the Graham addition, which some citizens saw as a step toward integration, while The News backed the board's neighborhood-school reasoning. Place: Carrboro Elementary School, Carrboro · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school board, Smith Level RoadThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 27, 1964, p. 13
  46. Three Cedar Grove families ask to move their children to the all-white Aycock School At the end of the 1964-65 school year, under its freedom of choice plan, the Orange County Board of Education sent school choice forms to the parents of every school-age child. Of the 401 forms sent to families at Cedar Grove School, the area's school for Black children, three asked for transfer to the all-white Aycock Elementary School and four to Orange Junior High School. Place: Cedar Grove · Also mentions: Cedar Grove SchoolNC State Historic Preservation Office: Cedar Grove School, National Register nomination (OR3044), p. 23 · Also: DigitalNC: Irene Oliver Pender, A History of Orange County Schools, 1752-1983; Open Orange: 6116 Efland Cedar Grove Rd. / Aycock High School
  47. Integrated Chapel Hill High opens on High School Road A new Chapel Hill High School campus opened on High School Road in 1966 as the town's first racially integrated high school, taking in the white student body from the Franklin Street school together with Lincoln High's students. Under freedom of choice the board had planned for white students to occupy the building a year before Black students joined, but Black students applied together for 1966 so that the school would not first be seen as belonging to the white students. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Lincoln High · Also mentions: Chapel Hill High School, Franklin StreetThe Local Reporter: Newly Renovated Chapel Hill High School to Hold Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony Aug. 3
  48. Lincoln High School closes during integration Lincoln High on Merritt Mill Road, the Black high school led since 1946 by principal C. A. McDougle, stopped operating as a secondary school in 1966 and its students were reassigned to the new Chapel Hill High, completing the desegregation of the district's schools. McDougle became an assistant principal there and Lincoln's championship football coach William D. Peerman was made an assistant coach after a contested board vote; Lincoln's name, colors, mascot and much of its memorabilia were not carried over. People: Charles A. McDougle Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: William D. Peerman · Also mentions: Merritt Mill RoadChapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools: Resolution in Honor of 50 Years of Desegregation in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, February 18, 1970, p. 1; The Daily Tar Heel, February 19, 1970, p. 1
  49. Northside Elementary closes after the school system integrates 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. It was still holding classes in December 1966, when the Daily Tar Heel reported on a special education class in Northside School. Place: 350 Caldwell Street, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City SchoolsThe Daily Tar Heel: Cammie Bellamy, New school, old ground (July 16, 2013) · Also: From the Rock Wall: A Note on "Northside"; Open Orange: 350 Caldwell St. / Orange County Training School; The Daily Tar Heel, December 15, 1966, p. 1
  50. Chapel Hill High School graduates its first desegregated class The class of 1967 was the first to finish at the merged Chapel Hill High School. The school board then debated the fate of the empty Lincoln building through 1969 and 1970, and voted to keep it for school use after sustained objection from Black residents to selling it. People: Robert Campbell, Stella Nickerson Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill High SchoolCarolina Digital Repository: From Forgotten to Remembered, The Long Process of School Desegregation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Prince Edward County, Virginia
  51. Black students walk out of Guy B. Phillips Junior High over the cheerleader choices About 150 Black students left class for about an hour at Guy B. Phillips Junior High after the faculty chose nine white and three Black cheerleaders and no change had been announced; the day before, about 15 Black students, some with parents, had sat in, and staff had then agreed to add two Black cheerleaders and one white. Principal Austin Simpson said the school, 30 percent Black and also housing 700 Grey Culbreth pupils, was weighing a three-to-one white-to-Black quota for all school organizations. Place: Guy B. Phillips Junior High School, Chapel Hill · Also named: Austin Simpson, Grey CulbrethSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 27, 1969, p. 5
  52. Chapel Hill school board reprimands a high school teacher after Black students' complaint At the November 3 board meeting, packed by about 110 people, Black Chapel Hill High students demanded the firing of a part-time Spanish teacher who, they said, had called a Black student a racial slur on October 22; he admitted losing his temper but denied the name-calling. After a Saturday hearing at Carrboro Auditorium the board reprimanded him and put him on probation for belligerent, insulting and profane language but kept him on. Place: Carrboro Auditorium, CarrboroThe Daily Tar Heel, November 9, 1969, p. 1
  53. A protest by Black students at Chapel Hill High School ends in damage, injuries and police About 200 Black students presented demands to the principal on Tuesday morning, among them the teacher's dismissal, all-Black homerooms and assemblies, more Black teachers, an Afro-American studies department and amnesty, and when she would meet only a few they moved through the halls. The Daily Tar Heel reported broken windows and ceilings, two students and a teacher hurt, about 30 officers called and warrants sought against 15 pupils, while 80 percent of the 1,000 students had left by noon. Place: Chapel Hill High School, Chapel HillThe Daily Tar Heel, November 12, 1969, p. 1
  54. About 500 Black parents and students take their grievances to the school board at First Baptist Church Joined by about 50 white residents, Black parents and students packed First Baptist Church on Wednesday night to tell the Chapel Hill school board of unequal treatment and harassment at Chapel Hill High and to ask amnesty for the students facing charges. Chairman Roy Lindahl refused amnesty but delayed the warrants, and the next night the board held them back pending investigation while ordering strong discipline; about 350 students stayed out in a partial boycott. People: Howard N. Lee Place: First Baptist Church, Chapel Hill · Also named: Roy Lindahl · Also mentions: Chapel Hill school boardThe Daily Tar Heel, November 14, 1969, p. 1
  55. The Chapel Hill school board answers Black students' demands and the boycott of Chapel Hill High ends Meeting in special session on Sunday, the board promised a biracial grievance committee of parents, teachers and students and renewed efforts to hire Black teachers and secretaries, but refused all-Black homerooms and assemblies and said all the Lincoln High trophies were already on display. Its replies went to students and parents on Monday as Black students ended the boycott begun after the November 11 disturbance. People: Howard N. Lee Place: Chapel Hill High School, Chapel HillThe Daily Tar Heel, November 18, 1969, p. 1
  56. Chapel Hill's city schools report Black enrollment of 22 to 36 percent in every school The Chapel Hill city schools reported that every school was racially balanced: two elementary schools were 22 to 23 percent Black and two were over a third Black, both junior highs and the high school were 28 percent Black, while only about 12 percent of teachers were Black. Superintendent Wilmer Cody said the districts could be cut like a pie, so little busing was needed. Place: Chapel Hill city schools, Chapel Hill · Also named: Wilmer CodyThe Daily Tar Heel, February 18, 1970, p. 1
  57. Ridgefield parents press the school board to act on racism in the schools Black parents from the Ridgefield townhouse community told a Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board meeting that racism persisted in the schools, citing incidents at Ephesus Road Elementary, including Black children singled out for receiving free lunches, and demanded action. Place: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Chapel HillBlack Ink (Black Student Movement, UNC), February 1974, p. 8
  58. Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools form a Blue Ribbon Task Force after Black parents press on the achievement gap Black parents demanded more resources for disadvantaged students, and the district responded with a Blue Ribbon Task Force. The article judges that it changed little: the gap between Black and White test scores, tracked since the 1980s, narrowed only slightly. Place: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Chapel HillWillow Lung-Amam, "The Not-So-New South Suburbs," RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9, no. 2 (2023), p. 61
  59. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board pledges to act on its blue ribbon task force's plan for Black students The school board voted unanimously for a resolution committing the system to act on its blue ribbon task force's recommendations for Black students, among them textbook guidelines that include Black history and literature, a mentor program, more Black students in gifted programs, leadership classes for parents and an expanded Head Start. A resident told the board the plan lacked urgency, and members disagreed over how to pay for it. Place: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Chapel HillThe Daily Tar Heel, March 16, 1993, p. 3
  60. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board adopts its school assignment and reassignment policy Policy 4150 set the rules the district followed when it redrew attendance lines. As revised on April 2, 2009, its priorities for reassignment were walk zones, full use of buildings and equity, meaning balanced family income and achievement among schools and short travel times. Place: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, Chapel HillWillow Lung-Amam, "The Not-So-New South Suburbs," RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9, no. 2 (2023), p. 72
  61. 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. Place: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, Chapel HillWillow Lung-Amam, "The Not-So-New South Suburbs," RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9, no. 2 (2023), p. 66
  62. Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board honors Stanley Vickers and his family on the 60th anniversary of his court victory The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board passed a resolution recognizing the Vickers family's work to integrate the schools. Vickers, then in his 70s, attended and recalled eating lunch and going to gym alone as one of the first Black students at the junior high. People: Stanley Vickers Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City SchoolsSearch the index · INDY Week: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board Honors Stanley Vickers and His Family's Work to Integrate Area Schools (August 18, 2021)

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 13 with a known location.

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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All places and the county map →

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Filter these works by material, period, or place. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period or place.

Material

Interviews 16Biography 15Histories 6Periodicals 2Directories 1other types 1

Period

20th century 11

Place

Chapel Hill 40North Carolina (statewide) 10Carrboro 6Orange County 4Hillsborough 2City of Durham (neighboring) 1

Oral history interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001: interview K-0216, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Regester, Charlene B. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Charlene Regester (born 1956) recalls being one of the first Black children to attend Chapel Hill's white elementary schools, in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded February 23, 2001, by Susan Upton. Her parents, convinced that integrated schools would give Black children better resources, petitioned for her transfer to Estes Hills Elementary, then all white, and Regester describes what those years were like for her. About 45 minutes. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: School integration -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Fran Jackson, March 23, 2001: interview K-0208, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Jackson, Fran · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Fran Jackson recalls school integration in Chapel Hill as a student in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded March 23, 2001, by Christa Broadnax. Jackson began at Northside Elementary and moved to Guy B. Phillips, the integrated junior high, after her parents petitioned for the transfer. She explains that Black parents backed integration because it promised their children the resources the white schools had, and describes what the change meant socially for Black students. Published online in 2007 in Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: School integration -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Sam Holton, March 28, 2001: interview K-0206, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Holton, Samuel M. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Samuel M. Holton (1922-2010) sat on Chapel Hill's school board during desegregation. Elected in 1968 after a term as PTA president, he took office as racial tension rose after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Talking with Jenny Matthews in March 2001, he describes the board's decisions on integrating the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the conflicts that came with them. Runs about eighty minutes; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2007 through Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: School integration -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Segregation in education -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- History -- 20th century.

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

NC Cardinal UNC
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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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

NC Cardinal UNC

Oral history interview with Kathryn Cheeks, March 27, 2003: interview K-0203, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Cheeks, Kathryn · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

A short interview, about thirty-one minutes, with Kathryn Cheeks, a white woman from Chapel Hill who attended elementary school while the town's public schools were desegregating. Talking with Susan Upton in March 2003, she recalls what a child noticed and missed about desegregation, race relations at Chapel Hill High School, and the civil rights demonstrations of the period. Part of the Southern Oral History Program; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2006 through Documenting the American South.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: School integration -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.

NC Cardinal UNC

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.).

NC Cardinal UNC

Search all 42 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this storyline. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this storyline itself.

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  • Foundational · NC 975.656 HISTORIC Antebellum Hillsborough, Slavery, and Enslaved and Free People of Color Who Worked at the Burwell School, 1837-1857 Historic Hillsborough Commission (Hillsborough, N.C.) · 2019

    The Historic Hillsborough Commission's account of slavery in antebellum Hillsborough and of the enslaved and free people of color who worked at the Burwell School, the female school the Burwells kept in town, between 1837 and 1857. African American history in Hillsborough and the school's own history are its two threads. Published in 2019.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 373.756 PRI A Sketch of the School of the Misses Nash and Miss Kollock, Hillsboro, North Carolina Primrose, Ella P. · 1926

    Ella P. Primrose's short sketch of the school kept by the Misses Nash and Miss Kollock in Hillsborough, a select boarding and day school for girls in the nineteenth century. Printed in Raleigh in 1926, 13 pages with a single plate.

  • Wider context · NC 371.979 WAL Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South Siddle Walker, Vanessa · 1996

    Vanessa Siddle Walker's case study of the Caswell County Training School, a school for Black students in segregated Caswell County, and of the community around it. Caswell was formed from Orange County in 1777, with Yanceyville as its seat. UNC Press, 1996; 259 pages with illustrations, a map, a bibliography and an index.

  • Wider context · NC 371.1 BRO A History of North Carolina Retired School Personnel: A Division of North Carolina Association of Educators, 1961-1978 Browning, Alma · 1978

    The history of North Carolina Retired School Personnel from 1961 to 1978, told by Alma Browning. The group, a division of the North Carolina Association of Educators, brings together retired teachers and other school employees. Printed by Heritage Printers in 1978; 99 pages.

  • Wider context · NC 373.756 COO North Carolina Schools and Academies, 1790-1840: A Documentary History Coon, Charles L. · 1915

    Charles L. Coon's documentary history of North Carolina academies and schools from 1790 to 1840, published by the North Carolina Historical Commission in 1915. Its 846 pages reprint academy notices, legislative acts and items from the Raleigh Register and other papers, with a section on the colleges' beginnings. Hillsborough Academy trustees' notices are among them, and Coon's introduction notes how many academy principals came from the University in Chapel Hill.

  • Wider context · NC 975.661 GIB Staley School: A History of A Community Gibbs, Milburn · 2000

    Milburn Gibbs's history of Staley School and the community it served in Staley, a small Randolph County town, published by Five Hawks Press of nearby Liberty in 2000; 225 illustrated pages.

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Orange County’s Black high schools: the Training School, Lincoln and Central →Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1965 →The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 →Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation →

Picture: The 1951 Lincoln High School building on South Merritt Mill Road. CC0. Photograph by Mx. Granger; via Wikimedia Commons

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