The title was inspired by the name of the mascot of Chapel Hill’s all-Black Lincoln High School, the Mighty Tigers. Home of a band and football team known throughout the state as well as educators that became the namesakes of an elementary school and two of four middle schools in town, Lincoln High School, more than any other institution, brought the local African American community together and continues to be a source of great pride and connection. Its closure in 1967 shook the community to its core as its mighty legacy, like the countless trophies in the school’s trophy case, was largely discarded. After protest by Black students, the new, integrated Chapel Hill High adopted Lincoln High’s Tiger mascot, minus the “Mighty.” The pain of this loss echoes in the words of those who tell the story decades later.
“Mighty” aptly describes the communities and people on which this book focuses. Living in a deeply segregated town and laboring for a university modeled on the plantation economy, African American residents nevertheless built strong networks of support in neighborhoods, schools, churches and businesses in which black lives really mattered and the abundance resulting from mutual support and respect was celebrated. Starting with desegregation in the 1960s, they have been threatened by urban renewal of the 70s followed by predatory development, property tax increases, inequitable and inadequate resource distribution by school and government leaders, disappearing job opportunities, and a sky rocketing cost of living. The community has fought back, historically and in the present. They have always fought back against being written out of the town’s history by passing their history down through the generations.
Mighty: Stories from a Southern Town celebrates the living legacy of the African-American communities in and around Chapel Hill and ones like them throughout the South. Thanks to the efforts of oral historians, local storytellers, and younger generations committed to rewriting the exclusionary and racist histories they have been taught, Black voices are being amplified, and as a result, the need for racial justice is receiving attention in the public consciousness.
MIGHTY 