Oral history interview with Walter Durham, January 19 and 26, 2001
Subtitle: interview K-0540, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Gilgor, Bob, 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: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Race relations; School integration; African Americans; Attitudes; Social life and customs; African American students; Education (Secondary); Segregation in education; Civil rights demonstrations; Lincoln High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.); Chapel Hill High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Other titles: Interview K-0540, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Walter Durham, January 19 and 26, 2001; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Walter Durham, an African American community member of Orange County, North Carolina, recalls his experiences growing up in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Born in the late 1940s into a land-owning family, Durham attended all-black schools in Carrboro until 1966, when the African American high school, Lincoln, merged with the newly integrated Chapel Hill High School. For Durham, school integration was largely a negative experience. He fondly recalls Lincoln High School as an extremely well-ordered and disciplined school with strong ties to the community and pride in students' accomplishments, particularly in football. According to Durham, black students' traditions were lost when the Chapel Hill schools integrated. This, along with tensions between white and black students, led Durham to participate in the 1968 "riot" at Chapel Hill High School.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on December 20, 2007).

Interview participants: Walter Durham, interviewee; Bob Gilgor, interviewer.

Duration: 02:11:25.

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. 201 kilobytes, 240 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series K, Southern communities, interview K-0540, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 41 p.

Funding from the Institute for 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.