Oral history interview with Charles M. Jones, July 21, 1990
Subtitle: interview A-0335, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Egerton, John, interviewer; Jones, Dorcas, interviewee; 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: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Civil rights workers; Presbyterians; Race relations; Christianity; Civil rights movements; Racism; Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Other titles: Interview A-0335, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Charles M. Jones, July 21, 1990; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Charles Jones led the First Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill during the late 1940s. In this interview, he briefly describes his education and how he entered the ministry. He spends most of the time discussing the controversies that occurred during his tenure at the church. The regional presbytery disapproved of his decision to allow African American Presbyterians to attend the church and to provide shelter to Freedom Riders after they left Durham, North Carolina. Jones also went against church rules by not having his members read the Article of Faith during service. He describes how the presbytery tried to force him to move to another church, pledge support for the Article of Faith, and segregate the church. Some local whites, including students and faculty at the University of North Carolina, supported Jones throughout this process. Yet he was eventually expelled from the Presbyterian Church for his views on race and faith. The interview closes with his opinions on the inevitable failure of the "separate but equal" doctrine and whether John Egerton was correct in seeing the period between 1945 and 1950 as a missed opportunity for improvement in race relations.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 20, 2007).

Interview participants: Charles M. Jones, interviewee; Dorcas Jones, interviewee; John Egerton, interviewer.

Duration: 01:02:34.

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

Text encoded by Mike Millner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 74.4 kilobytes, 114 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series A, Southern politics, interview A-0335, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Jovita Flynn. Original transcript: 31 p.

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

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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