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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Angus Boaz Thompson Sr., October 21, 2003. Interview U-0017. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

School mergers improve resources

In this excerpt, Thompson reflects on the school merger that took place in his area in the 1980s. He supported the merger of city and county schools because it gave county students access to better resources.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Angus Boaz Thompson Sr., October 21, 2003. Interview U-0017. 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

MM: What did you think about school merger then that happened in the 80s? What was your impression of that movement. AT: At the outset I was for it. I was for it. Now, I’ll tell you who was against it. ( ) It was being said, and I guess there was a little truth in it at that time, the county schools wasn’t as well qualified as the city schools, and I’m quite sure that they couldn’t help for what Lumberton was offering and all that stuff. So we didn’t have any real fight about mergers because the mass of the people were county, and the county people, they knew. I just told you. They were fighting to get their children in the city schools. That’s why. MM: Because they wanted to improve their—. AT: They had more to offer in the city schools, more to offer than the county schools. That’s why I wanted my boy in it. So, I was a hundred per cent for it even though I didn’t have anybody in the county at the time. But my gracious, I had all my black people out there. It’s just a matter of unselfishness. That would make the schools become more on a level. You take right now. Wake county, I’d say even Guilford, Mecklenberg, those counties they have more finance per pupil that we—I won’t say we’ll ever have—they have too much more to spend for children than we do down here because it’s low income. Well, it was the same thing with the city and the county. The city schools was so much more equipped than the county schools. That’s one reason for the merge. They asked for the merge. MM: Do you think it’s been successful? AT: Yes. Yes, ma’am. I really do. You can find somebody to give you a reason that they haven’t, but I’ll give you a whole lot that they have. Yes. It has upgraded a lot of your county schools. When you get them all in the same pot, if you’re in that pot over there, and I’m in this pot, I don’t know what you’re doing over there, and you don’t know what I’m doing. You know what’s going on, and they fight for part ( ).