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Oral History Interview with Alice Battle, February 20, 2001. Interview K-0523. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Alice Battle, who attended segregated Lincoln High School and later taught there, recalls her experiences in pre-integration Chapel Hill. This interview offers an interesting picture of life before integration. Battle tells some familiar stories, such as of the disciplinarian principal of Lincoln High School, Charles A. McDougle. She also tells some less familiar ones, such as how poor white students from Carrboro bore the brunt of discrimination alongside black students. Researchers interested in the patterns of daily life in black communities during segregation should look to the first half of the interview for relevant passages.
    Excerpts
  • Various experiences with white racism
  • Light-skinned African Americans receive preferential treatment
  • Discipline at Lincoln High School under C.A. McDougle
  • Poverty abets discrimination
  • Reaction to Martin Luther King's assassination
  • Racial problems return to integrated schools
  • Learn More
  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • School integration--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
  • African Americans--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
  • Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
  • Segregation in education--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
  • Orange County Training School (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
  • Battle, Alice
  • The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts held by the Southern Historical Collection.

    Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.