Title: Oral History Interview with Leroy Campbell, January 4, 1991. Interview M-0007.
Identifier: M-0007
Interviewer: Wells, Goldie F.
Interviewee: Campbell, Leroy
Subjects: African American high school principals--North Carolina    
Extent: 00:00:01
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.