Experiences of antisemitism and discrimination in the South and at UNC
Powell recalls how she was not accepted into a sorority at the University of North Carolina solely because she was Jewish. Arguing that this was not the first time she had experienced antisemitism, Powell concedes that "discrimination was a way of life in the South." Powell concludes by drawing connections between her experiences and African Americans, recalling how some of her dormmates reacted when her friend invited two African American women to visit for the weekend.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Sharon Rose Powell, June 20, 1989. Interview L-0041. 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
As freshmen, we really didn't know anything
at all about sorority living, but as a sophomore, I was invited, as were
all my peers, to go through the Rush system, and it was an opportunity
to meet the women from—there must have been seven or eight
sororities at that time. I had never thought about being in a sorority
before that, but all of my friends talked as if that was what you do,
you join a sorority. So I decided that that
must be what I should do too.
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
It was prestigious.
- SHARON ROSE POWELL:
-
It was. The sororities, they were quite nice. You could have your meals
there, and I knew that I wasn't probably going to stay at
Spencer Dorm all four years, which really was the ideal sorority. It was
a larger mix and a more diverse mix of girls, and it had all the
wonderful qualities that a sorority would have plus. But most juniors
and seniors did not live in Spencer; they lived in the other dorms.
Faced with that for the future, I thought, "Well, for a living
situation, I might like a more intimate situation." There were
older girls that I had met that I really admired and liked, so I joined
my friends, and we all went through Rush. I remember Dean Carmichael
saying to me quite early in that whole process, "You really
ought to look at Kappa Kappa Gamma." I said, "Well,
Dean Carmichael, I'm going to look at all the sororities. I
haven't made up my mind." She kept saying over and
over, "But Sharon, you really you ought to look at Kappa Kappa
Gamma." That's all she would say to me, and I
started meeting the girls from the different sororities, and I
didn't know.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
- SHARON ROSE POWELL:
-
I didn't know girls from Kappa Kappa Gamma, but I did know
some from ADPi and Tri Delt and that was where I really thought I would
be more comfortable. There was a policy where you went to Graham
Memorial, and we all went, and you would receive an envelope. On the
third night, you would write down the three sororities you wanted to be
asked back to, and if those sororities wanted to have you come back,
they would extend an invitation back to you. You knew if you got through
that round, which was not the last round, but the second to the last
round, that you would be guaranteed of getting in at least one of the
three, and everyone, everyone, would get through that round. It was just
not something, everybody would get into one sorority or another, it just
may not be their first choice, but at least you're going to
get into your third choice. I will never forget, it was probably
something that changed my life in more ways than one, the experience of
going with my friends to Graham Memorial and receiving our envelopes
with the invitations and receiving an empty envelope. I knew as soon as
it was handed to me that it had nothing in it, and as I walked through
the line past Kitty Carmichael, she was ashen, and she looked at me and
said, "I told you to look at Kappa Kappa Gamma." What
I learned later was that—I'm Jewish—and
that the sororities, at that particular time, were not inducted Jewish
girls, except for Kappa Kappa Gamma. They were the only sorority that
had alumni who had given permission for Jewish girls to be in the
sorority, and I had two strikes against me. I was not only Jewish, I had
divorced parents, and that was another, at
that time, in the mid-60's
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
These sorts of things would come out during your meetings when you went
to get to know these girls. These things would become known.
- SHARON ROSE POWELL:
-
Yes, that's right. Well, the girls who had made the
recommendations for their sororities and had recommended that I be in
the sorority were told by the alumni, by their parents, that they
absolutely could not consider me. It was just not acceptable, and they
had veto power, so I learned this later and, of course, realized later
what Kitty Carmichael was trying to tell me. It was fortunate for me
that I had started going out, just that fall, with a young man who is
now my husband, and he was waiting for me after we had found out where
we were going to be asked back. He said, "Well, who are the
lucky sororities?" And I said, "None of them because I
didn't get asked back." I just felt mortified and
embarrassed, and he said "That's their loss.
Let's go to lunch." And that was sort of the end of
that. He just had this way of saying, "Too bad for
them."
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
That's why you married him?
- SHARON ROSE POWELL:
-
Yes, one of the reasons. Of course, what that did for me is give me the
time and the interest to continue to live in the dormitories, rather
than move away from that into a sorority, and to devote my time and
energy to the majority of women who were not in sororities, and pay more
attention to their needs—and our needs—and our
living situation within the dorm.
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
Let me ask you, had you encountered, previously, before coming to Chapel
Hill, anti-semitism in any overt way? Was this something that was
totally unexpected?
- SHARON ROSE POWELL:
-
We were living in Charlotte. We had applied to join the country club, the
Myers Park Country Club, which was a few blocks from our house, and were
denied an invitation because we were Jewish, and we discovered that Jews
were not allowed, and so we had to go across town to the Jewish country
club. So certainly, on that level, it was a less personal level, I was
younger, but I was aware that, it was not a shock that Jews were not
allowed into certain places. I knew, from a very early age, that not
only were Jews not allowed, but even more so, blacks were not allowed
into restaurants, into bus stations, and it was something I grew up with
and always abhorred, but discrimination was a way of life in the
South.
- PAMELA DEAN:
-
Chapel Hill, just prior to your arrival, had gone through about a year
and a half of major Civil Rights demonstrations.
- SHARON ROSE POWELL:
-
Yes, I remember quite well my friend, Mary King, had been involved with
Girls State, and she had met some lovely girls who were black from the
all-black high school, and she'd remained friends with them,
and she had invited them to come to Chapel Hill and spend a weekend.
When she did, the shock that she received, so many of the girls in our
dorm just really didn't know what to do with it, and one of
the girls stayed in our room and one stayed in Mary's room,
but she had a hard time convincing the girls in our dorm that this was
O.K.