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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Carnell Locklear, February 24, 2004. Interview U-0007. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Ways in which racial segregation affected Native Americans

Locklear describes some of the ways in which racial segregation affected Indians.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Carnell Locklear, February 24, 2004. Interview U-0007. 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

CARNELL LOCKLEAR:
Well, they hated Indians, I mean, back in those days, Lumberton was-. They just didn't matter.
MALINDA MAYNOR:
It was the political influence that [unclear] .
CARNELL LOCKLEAR:
Well, I remember when I went to Red Springs, and the woman told me, when I was a kid. Said now, we can give you an ice cream, son, but you've got to eat it outside. You can't be here. I remember that, and I remember that fluently.
WILLIE LOWERY:
I do too. The drugstore over there, you couldn't-
CARNELL LOCKLEAR:
Over on Main Street there. I go by there and look at it and get aggravated.
WILLIE LOWERY:
They had a movie theater too.
CARNELL LOCKLEAR:
Yeah. You couldn't sit with them. You had to go upstairs in Lumberton. And I remember me and a boy, went down to Fairmont. I'd go stay with him, same way down there. You couldn't go. You couldn't eat nothing. You couldn't do nothing. [END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A] [TAPE 1, SIDE B] [START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
MALINDA MAYNOR:
So it was sort of the white political power structure in Lumberton that was keeping most of the Indian opportunity down?
CARNELL LOCKLEAR:
Yes, definitely. [unclear] And that was during our tenure there, that was a big issue, we just didn't have equal opportunity. Our people had to go to-they couldn't go to school here in the State of North Carolina, in Chapel Hill. They had to go out of state.
WILLIE LOWERY:
[unclear] to go out of the state.
CARNELL LOCKLEAR:
Oh yeah, they had to go out of state. Most of them that got their degrees at that time had to leave here to go get it.