Oral History Interview with Leroy Campbell, January 4, 1991. Interview M-0007. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#40007).
Audio with Transcript
Listen Online with Text Transcript
(Requires QuickTime and JavaScript)
Transcript Only (15 p.)
HTML file
XML/TEI source file
Download Complete Audio File (MP3 format / ca. 129 MB, 01:10:40)
MP3
Abstract
After traveling the world, Leroy Campbell entered the education field motivated to share his experiences. He became a high school principal at the all-black Unity School in Iredell County, North Carolina, in the mid-1960s. In this interview, he responds to the interviewers' checklist of questions and offers his thoughts on the effects of desegregation on Iredell schools. Understaffed and underfunded, Campbell found support in a cohesive black community and a relationship with a county official who provided him with new school buses to drive the convoluted routes necessary to maintain segregation. The core of this interview may be Campbell's description of the black community's anxieties about desegregation, including the fear that the process would splinter the community and affect the quality of education. Their fears were well-founded, and Campbell ends the interview by recalling the closing of Unity School, the dispersal of its students, and his departure from the profession.
Excerpts
Segregated schools enjoyed stability and community cohesion
A unique relationship with a county official results in extra buses for a black school
General poverty means inequality between white and black schools is not dramatic
Anticipating the ill effects of desegregation
Learn More
Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
Subjects
African American high school principals--North Carolina
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.