Oral history interview with Elizabeth Pearsall, May 25, 1988
Subtitle: interview C-0056, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Campbell, Walter E.; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] :
Subjects: Interviews; Women; School integration; Education and state; Race relations
Other titles: Interview C-0056, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Elizabeth Pearsall, May 25, 1988; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Elizabeth Pearsall fondly recalls the work of her husband, Thomas Pearsall. Pearsall explains that Governor Umstead appointed her husband to the North Carolina school planning commission because of his easygoing personality and leadership abilities. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, North Carolina politicians sought a way to evade the order to integrate without closing the schools. Thomas Pearsall crafted the Pearsall Plan, adopted by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1956. Elizabeth Pearsall explains that the Plan's goal was to calm whites' racial fears, preserve the public schools, and obey the Supreme Court ruling. Pearsall discusses her husband's self-assessment on the eve of his death. She reveals that Thomas worried that blacks blamed him for not doing enough to improve their condition. Thomas genuinely cared about blacks by attempting to keep the public schools open, she says. Immediate integration of the schools, she implies, would have resulted in the closing of public schools to blacks and whites. Pearsall describes her own involvement in public affairs. Her work in the peace movement and her religious affiliation ultimately led to her own attempts at fostering racial cooperation. She describes her increased awareness of racial disparities at an interracial meeting she attended in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Pearsall recalls realizing that effective interracial relations rely on an atmosphere of trust and honesty. She argues that adequate pay and educational parity between blacks and whites would level the playing field.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 14, 2008).

Interview participants: Elizabeth Pearsall, interviewee; Walter E. Campbell, interviewer.

Duration: 01:15:39.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 120 kilobytes, 138 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series C, Notable North Carolinians, interview C-0056, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Jovita Flynn. Original transcript: 37 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.