Oral history interview with Louise Pointer Morton, December 12, 1994
Subtitle: interview Q-0067, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: McCoy, James Eddie (James Edward), 1942- interviewer; 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
Subjects: Interviews; African American women; African Americans; Social life and customs; Country life
Other titles: Interview Q-0067, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Louise Pointer Morton, December 12, 1994; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Louise Pointer Morton was born in Granville County, North Carolina, in 1910. Morton begins the interview by describing her grandmother's role in the founding of the Jonathon Creek Church (intermittently called the Johnson Creek Church in the interview). Although she does not recall the specific date of the church's construction, Morton explains that her grandmother acquired land for the church from the Pittard family, to whom she was enslaved and seems to have continued to work for following her emancipation. With the gift of land, Morton and other African Americans in the community built a log church. The church was eventually replaced and a school for local African American children was also built on the land. Morton's grandmother had purchased five acres by the church and the school, where she raised her nine children and where many of her grandchildren also lived. Morton describes growing up in this community, relating her school and church experience and life without electricity or running water. Despite the lack of luxuries, Morton recalls with fondness how the community gathered to socialize and to work together during corn shuckings, and she expresses pride in her family's self-sufficiency. Additionally, in her recollections of the Jonathon (Johnson) Creek Church, Morton throws into relief the centrality of religion as a preeminent social institution within southern African American communities.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 2, 2008).

Interview participants: Louise Pointer Morton, interviewee; Eddie McCoy, interviewer.

Duration: 00:47:42.

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. 148 kilobytes,  87.3 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series Q, African American life and culture, interview Q-0067, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Sally Council. 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.