Oral history interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001
Subtitle: interview K-0216, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Upton, Susan, 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; School integration; African American students; Social conditions; Race relations; African Americans
Other titles: Interview K-0216, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Charlene Regester, February 23, 2001; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Charlene Regester recounts her educational experience in Chapel Hill public schools during the early integration efforts. Her parents ardently advocated for integrated schools as a means to improve blacks' access to resources. They petitioned to transfer Regester into all-white Estes Hills Elementary School; she remained in integrated schools throughout her secondary school career. Though they did endorse school integration, Regester's parents still attempted to protect her from the dangers of white racism by encouraging her not to patronize racist white businesses. Regester continued to heed their warnings even after the demise of Jim Crow facilities. Regester contends that integration cost blacks their identities and burdened them with a sense of inferiority. Her frustration with integration at her school led her to take part in the black student movement. She argues that most white students and teachers ostracized black students solely because of race, and she blames white teachers for establishing low standards for black students, which she says they then internalized. Regester also points to a racial and class divide within the Chapel Hill community: while the children of University of North Carolina professors had vast resources, poor whites and blacks had to compensate for their limited resources in other ways. Regester ends the interview with an evaluation of school integration. She contends that because of the psychological toll on blacks and the loss of black cultural institutions, integration did more harm than good.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 10, 2008).

Interview participants: Charlene Regester, interviewee; Susan Upton, interviewer.

Duration: 00:45:47.

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. 84 kilobytes, 83.8 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series K, Southern communities, interview K-0216, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 20 p.

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

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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