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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001. Interview K-0216. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Impact of the closed black schools on blacks in Chapel Hill

Regester explains the sense of cultural and communal loss the black community faced when the local black high school closed.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001. Interview K-0216. 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

SUSAN UPTON:
This might be before you would remember a lot about it, but whenever Lincoln High School closed, do you remember much of the reaction about that?
CHARLENE REGESTER:
Well I just remember when it closed, for awhile it was converted to a school for like, it became like a sixth grade only school. So I remember going there for like my sixth grade or something like that, and it was like a pre-junior high school or something and then it was later converted into an administration building which it is today. But in terms of people feeling a sense of loss when the school was closed, yes...I think the African American community very much felt that way because what happened was that at Lincoln High School you had all black teachers and many of those teachers did not have opportunities in these integrated schools so I think the community very much felt a sense of loss and a sense of community, because at Lincoln High School they had you know, a marching band. Sports was a big thing and when integration came a lot of that was lost so people did feel a sense of loss.