Oral history interview with Leroy Beavers, August 8, 2002
Subtitle: interview R-0170, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Taylor, Kieran Walsh, interviewer; Beavers, Leroy, 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: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; African American barbers; African Americans; Segregation; Social conditions; Race relations
Other titles: Interview R-0170, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Leroy Beavers, August 8, 2002; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Leroy Beavers Jr., recalls segregation and integration in Savannah, Georgia. Beavers walks the reader through a history of the city, from its golden years in the 1950s, when African Americans thrived in a self-contained community, to the decay of the 1960s and the damage he sees as having been brought about by integration. Beavers condemns integration, calling it "a genocide of a social life . . . where people had just a pure natural respect for each other." Beavers maintains that the closely-knit black community unraveled because new opportunities tempted African Americans and the spirit of self-reliance faded. A proud community slumped as drugs and crime infested black neighborhoods, and African Americans began to discriminate against one another. This crowd of social pathologies gathers on Martin Luther King Street, a name choice Beavers bitterly condemns. A bristling attack on integration, this interview provides an interesting perspective on the legacy of integration in a southern city.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 28, 2008).

Interview participants: Leroy Beavers, interviewee; Leroy Beavers Sr., interviewee; Kieran Taylor, interviewer.

Duration: 00:45:55.

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. 104 kilobytes,  84.0 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series R, Special research projects, interview R-0170, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by T. Altizer. Original transcript: 19 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.