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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Barbara Lorie, February 26, 2001. Interview K-0211. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Location and structure of Chapel Hill High reflects local white attitudes toward integration

The decision to locate the newly integrated Chapel Hill High on the outskirts of town permitted whites to avoid viewing actual integration. Lorie argues that even the physical structure of the high school reflected white citizens' racial beliefs.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Barbara Lorie, February 26, 2001. Interview K-0211. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

BARBARA LORIE:
...So I stayed there for two years, until finally, Ms. Lewis, the one I had student taught under, called me up. "Barbara, there is a job that is, there is a position opening up here in sophomore English, and I think you'd do real well. So why don't you apply for that?" And I said, "Okay, Ms. Lewis, I will." I go over there and [to] Ms. Marshbanks: "Hi, Ms. Marshbanks, you probably don't remember me." "Well, yes I do remember you, Ms. Lorie. This is the year we're going to integrate, and they've built the brand new school." God forbid we should see anybody down in the middle of town. You know, let's get 'em out of town, as far away as possible so that nobody has to see that we've got blacks and whites going to school together, my god! You know. So they built this hideous school with windows - you know, in the Middle Ages they had these little tiny windows that you could put arrows through, you know? And kill anybody that was coming. Well that's the kind of windows that were out there in this new building. You know, god forbid you should have a window that you could see through! And here was this beautiful, they were out there in the middle of the forest, and the fields, it was absolutely gorgeous out there. And inside classrooms without any windows. It was the ugliest building you ever saw in your life. It was just - ah, man, it was so bad...