Oral history interview with Lillian Taylor Lyons, September 11, 1994
Subtitle: interview Q-0094, 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; Race relations; African Americans; Social life and customs; Education
Other titles: Interview Q-0094, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Lillian Taylor Lyons, September 11, 1994; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Lillian Taylor Lyons was born and raised in Oxford, North Carolina, in the early twentieth century. Lyons begins her interview by describing her family history, reaching back to her parents' experiences in Virginia and North Carolina. Her father was born enslaved in 1850 and accompanied his master with the Confederate army during the Civil War, while her mother was born just on the cusp of the Civil War and, according to Lyons, was not enslaved. After briefly explaining her father's work as an expert carpenter, Lyons shifts to a discussion of her mother's education in a school for African American children in Granville County, North Carolina, which was run by white Canadians following the Civil War. Education was important in Lyons' family, and she describes in some detail how she and her siblings all went to the Mary Potter school in Oxford. Following her own graduation in 1919, Lyons attended college and became a school teacher. In addition to describing her family history, her education, and her work as a teacher, Lyons devotes considerable attention to a discussion of race relations, particularly as it related to skin tone, in Oxford. Oxford was especially "forward-looking" in its views on race relations, as evidenced by the high value placed on African American education, according to Lyons. Researchers interested in the local history of Granville County will find the final third of the interview particularly useful for Lyons' extensive comments on Granville County families and their interactions.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 2, 2008).

Interview participants: Lillian Taylor Lyons, interviewee; Eddie McCoy, interviewer.

Duration: 01:44:09.

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. 184 kilobytes, 190 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series Q, African American life and culture, interview Q-0094, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Sally Council. Original transcript: 47 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.