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:
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...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...