“History is ‘his-story.’ And until we start getting some publicity, it’s going to stay like that.” David Caldwell, Jr.1
“I told her, proudly, that I was born and raised in Chapel Hill. I knew what was coming next: ‘Reeeeeaaaaallllly?! I didn’t know there were any Black people from Chapel Hill!'” Cynthia Edwards-Paschall 2
“I have lived here all my life. My daughter grew up here. We went to school here. She went to UNC-Chapel Hill. … This is MY town!” Pat Jackson3
The town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the place I’ve called home for more than a decade, has a reputation as an unusually progressive university town, but in many ways it is a southern town like any other. Its standardized history and the monuments enshrining that history focus on the white elites who’ve always run things. By those accounts, the place is a “Southern Part of Heaven.”4 From phrases celebrating the town’s liberal exceptionalism to “10-Best” lists hailing it as one of America’s “most livable places,” misrepresentations old and new obscure the presence and experience of its African American population. Chapel Hill has been home to African Americans since the founding of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), which they built, and many Black residents today can trace their roots in the area back four or five generations, or more. The histories of Black and white Chapel Hill—separate and unequal– have been intertwined from the beginning. Slavery, Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan, Confederate heroes, slave cemeteries with unmarked graves, segregation, white supremacy, lynchings: all are part of the local history. Despite courageous efforts to provoke public reckonings with the town’s racial and economic inequalities in labor, schooling, and housing, Chapel Hill’s reputation as heaven-like persists.
Most towns—and not only in the South– present a whitewashed self-image by burying or distorting past injustices and current sites of struggle. In college and university towns in particular, the story of the “town” is typically told from the perspective of the “gown.”
Mighty provides an example of how inherited and inadequate versions of local history can be rewritten through the gathering of individual stories. Thanks to brave and defiant people, a more accurate history has been passed down and is not forgotten. Together, the diverse stories in this volume paint a picture of life as defined by the inescapable limitations of Jim Crow segregation but also by the abundance found in a self-sustaining African American community. Mighty draws on the over 200 oral histories archived and hosted online in “From the Rock Wall” by the Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History.5 The voices captured in this collection demonstrate the resilience of local black communities (now referred to collectively as “Northside”) in the face of racist perils awaiting them when they crossed into the neighborhoods, business districts, schools, churches, and UNC campus, that together made up white Chapel Hill. The stories of the members of the Northside community are Chapel Hill stories, and they are also southern and national stories, reflecting the lived reality of segregation and institutional and everyday racism.
Mighty retells extraordinary stories of ordinary people involved in the civil rights movement, the desegregation of the schools, and our contemporary, often partisan battles around social and economic equity. The words to the civil rights song, “We shall not be moved,’” take on new meaning today for African American families fighting marginalization and displacement. For some readers the voices in Mighty will be a source of empowerment; for others, they will encourage reflection on the privilege that results from centuries of injustice. These reflections can lead to honest reckonings with the past, a prerequisite for advancing racial justice.
The idea for this book began in 2015 with a storyteller and his stories. At the time I was a high school German teacher. Always on the lookout for affecting materials for my students, I visited a traveling exhibit about the experience of African American GIs in Germany during and after World War II.6 It hit me then and there that surely someone in my own town could speak to this experience. I contacted the Jackson Center and a staff member pointed me to David Caldwell, Jr., whose family goes back multiple generations in Northside. Caldwell had served in the military police in West Germany at a time when domestic terrorism there was on the rise. He graciously agreed to speak with me and my students. One story led to another, then another, and on and on, from Europe back to the Piedmont of North Carolina. His stories were my introduction to the African American community in Chapel Hill. Once I had the privilege of listening to David Caldwell’s stories, I was hooked.
Oral history interviewing began as something I did in my free time, outside the classroom. But when the opportunity arose, I took a position as Education and Communications Director at the Jackson Center, located in the heart of Northside, and was able to devote myself to making sure as many people as possible heard the life stories I was hearing. This book explores those stories as well as my own experiences working with a team of Community Mentors–elder leaders connected to Northside–who teach local history workshops in K-12 classrooms.
Mighty‘s storytellers and history-makers illuminate local struggles today and the pertinacity, vision, creativity, and courage of those who continue to fight for their rightful piece of their town’s plentiful resources. In the words of Rev. Troy Harrison, “the decisions in politics that we make ought to embrace dreams, dreams of a better place and a better time and a better situation for all of Chapel Hill.”7 Stories of struggle can be found in every town, and in every town, those who have little power are denied genuine chances to participate in decision-making. By listening to personal accounts of struggle we can begin to imagine and then to build communities all can proudly call “home.”
Gathering oral histories in the Northside community galvanized me like no other work before had, but I found myself struggling to come to terms with my own privilege. Being able to pursue curiosity with relative abandon is much easier in this country if you are white. As a white woman, I am seldom questioned when I enter a library or ask for directions to an interviewee’s house or wander strange neighborhoods taking in my surroundings or knock on a stranger’s door, or attend a public meeting. Curiosity requires freedom of movement; before someone answers your questions, they must be receptive; before you can comfortably enter a space— even a so-called “public space”— you must be recognized as belonging there. It’s much easier to follow your curiosity when you yourself are not being followed. You can’t really watch others when someone always is watching you. To observe, you have to blend in and that’s impossible if you’re noticed or made noticeable by a racialized cultural code.
In Northside, I was embraced by neighbors and members of the church community (people of a “certain age” close to my own or older), but I also felt the anger and frustration of a younger generation tired of Southern gentility and “knowing one’s place.” I understood them, I thought, but did I, really? Could I even?
I walk around with white privilege and am so often unaware of just how many doors open because of the color of my skin, my education, my comfortable middle-class life. I had many difficult conversations in efforts, however misguided, to address race. I dedicated myself to listening more deeply, actively, sincerely, and not to take things too personally. But every time I struggle with terminology or feel self-conscious, I realize I will always have more to learn.
I’m not really a crowd person. I thrive on one-on-one exchanges, personal interactions, and relationships that result from listening closely. That is how I think I can make a contribution: by listening and sharing remarkable people’s stories.
True objectivity doesn’t exist; we are all shaped by history and by a culture corrupted by centuries-old fictions. Racism is systemic and cannot be undone by a simple change of heart. When I listen to stories, I try to keep this in mind and to let what I hear change me.
~
Book chapters have been organized into seven thematic sections. The first section, “Storytelling,” focuses on what we can learn from personal narratives and the truths and power they hold. As Danita Mason-Hogans puts it, “the way we tell stories and document history is social justice work.”8 But the storyteller must be recognized as the owner of the story and determine what is told, how it is recorded, under what conditions it is archived, and how it is made accessible to the public. First and foremost, oral history is about relationship-building. This begins with active listening, the basis of all meaningful justice work. When we listen actively and cultivate trust we are taking a step towards building Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Beloved Community.”
Whenever the team of Mentors and I talked with kids about local African American history, we emphasized the four pillars of the Northside community: home, business, church, and school. The section “Neighborhood” focuses on the interrelationship of the first three pillars. And since my focus has always been on education, yet another fundamental that Northside residents had to fight to have fair access to, a separate section of the book, “School,” focuses on the fourth.
Two further thematically-organized sections,“(Re)Writing Local History” and “History in Action,” take on the ways in which a personal story can disrupt conventional narratives and empower readers to recognize the force of their own experiences. Oral histories from people whose voices normally don’t appear in textbooks help upend such narratives. For example, the foundational myth that democracy began in 1776, and that African Americans held in bondage were “freed” in 1865, was created and maintained by white male settlers and their descendants. Local narratives from Northsiders suggest that democracy came much later– in 1964, perhaps, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Many would argue its day still hasn’t come so long as Black citizens are gunned down without justification, young Black men are incarcerated at six times the rate of their white peers, and state legislatures seek new ways to restrict voting rights of Black citizens.9 People’s memories of lived experiences issue serious challenges to tidy, familiar histories still being taught in classrooms and can shake them to their core. To paraphrase words of the Center’s namesake, Northside leader Marian Cheek Jackson, when we discover the truth about the past, we can shape the future.
True personal histories further expose less bombastic, more insidiously harmful narratives, such as those in which Black Americans are portrayed as victims not agents. But as active listening quickly makes plain, the actions of Black Americans have been silenced. Stories told by local storytellers are tributes to the courage of individuals participating in and indeed creating key moments in the nation’s history. Marian Cheek Jackson’s ideas recur throughout the oral histories this book showcases: once we repossess our past, we can demand a more just future. Personal narratives that highlight everyday obstacles; material structural disadvantages; social and cultural insults; personal triumphs; the power of faith and love; solidarity and generosity; and extraordinary achievements double as concrete examples for creating change in the present. Storytelling leads to history making.
The final two sections of Mighty address current issues in local politics and local schools. “Change” focuses on the threat to local communities where many African Americans live when decent job opportunities and affordable housing dwindle. And yet, as the stories in these sections indicate, the tide to resist displacement can be advanced through individual acts and collective efforts. The last section, “The Next Generation,” homes in on the present-day challenges kids face in schools when the affluent’s concerns are addressed at the expense of low-wealth families, including many children of color, for whom the playing field has never been level. Elder Northsiders who lived through segregation and the civil rights movement say that the challenges faced by African American kids “coming up” today in towns throughout the South and the U.S. are just as daunting.
The book ends on a hopeful note. The groundswell of political action following the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in May 2020 show that young people are ready to lead the push for change and insist on social, legal and political fairness. Once again, the national story of ongoing racial oppression and its rightful corollary, outrage, has a local chapter. Just as in the 1960s marchers took to Chapel Hill’s main drag, Franklin Street, challenging segregation and unjust treatment of the town’s Black residents, a new generation took to the streets in 2020. The book ends with the words of a Northsider who was there for both.
When I began listening to the voices of those who lived and live in the historically Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill, my mental picture of the town changed. It is my expectation the reader’s will too. If you’re familiar with the history of African Americans in Chapel Hill or can trace your roots there, I hope you’ll be moved to hear their words and feel that Mighty has done the community right in retelling their stories. If you’ve got a story or comment to contribute, I’d love to hear it. And if you’re interested in oral history and its critical role in community-building and renewal, if you’re looking for resources for students, or if you simply want to delve into local African American history, visit the Marian Cheek Jackson Center’s website for a wealth of information and inspiration (jacksoncenter.info).
Notes
1 Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History, “David Caldwell, Jr.,” interviewed by Andrea Wuerth, 9 June 2017, From the Rock Wall [website], accessed 16 February 2021. https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/david-caldwell-jr
2 Cynthia Edwards-Paschall, “Black History, Our History,” Chapel Hill Magazine, 20 July 2017, accessed 4 March 2021, https://chapelhillmagazine.com/black-history-our-history/
3 Patricia Jackson, Presentation for Chapel Hill High School US History class, 19 April 2017, personal notes of the author.
4 The phrase, “Southern Part of Heaven,” is the title of William Meade Prince’s 1950 memoir about growing up in Chapel Hill. His version of heaven is completely consistent with Jim Crow segregation, and he makes numerous references to Chapel Hill’s black residents in the racist language characteristic of the day. Referring to the black business district and the Northside neighborhood, at the time still known as “Sunset” and “Potter’s Field,” Prince echoes patronizing stereotypes when he writes: “Black faces in the doors of little Negro stores flashed toothy grins at you as you hurtled by.” For more on Prince and his book, see, Mike Ogle, “The Southern Part of Heaven: A Confederate Monument Still Standing,” Stonewalls [blog], 1 October 2020, accessed 19 February 2021, https://stonewalls.substack.com/p/the-southern-part-of-heaven
5 You can access the Jackson Center’s Oral History Trust, From the Rock Wall [website], at: https://fromtherockwall.org or through the Marian Cheek Jackson website: www.archives.jacksoncenter.info.
6 For more on the role played by African American veterans in the Civil Rights movement, see Maria Hoehn and Martin Klimke, A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany (Palgrave Macmillan: 2010).
7 Marian Cheek Jackson Center, “Troy Harrison – There’s a struggle going on,” From the Rock Wall, accessed March 4, 2021, https://fromtherockwall.org/oral-histories/troy-harrison-theres-a-struggle-going-on.
8 Danita Mason-Hogans, “Why the Way We Tell Stories and Document History is a Social Justice Issue,” , April 2019, TEDx Chapel Hill Live Conferences, accessed 2 February 2021, https://www.ted.com/talks/danita_mason_hogans_why_the_way_we_tell_stories_and_document_history_is_a_social_justice_issue?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
9 For more on these issues, see the website of the Equal Justice Institute: https://eji.org.
MIGHTY 