Oral history interview with Serena Henderson Parker, April 13, 1995
Subtitle: interview Q-0073, 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; African Americans; Social life and customs; Country life; Education
Other titles: Interview Q-0073, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Serena Henderson Parker, April 13, 1995; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Serena Henderson Parker was born in the small town of Huntsville, N.C., in 1923, the daughter of a sharecropper who eventually bought his own farm. Never enslaved because of their light skin, Parker's grandparents and great grandparents, though rural farmers and laborers, were educated and literate; Parker herself was educated in segregated schools and began a teaching career in 1946. In this interview, Parker remembers her childhood in rural North Carolina; recalls her education in a one-room schoolhouse; reflects on her family history, which includes brushes with slavery; and describes her rural community. This interview will be particularly useful to researchers interested in the foodways and social lives of African Americans in early- and mid-20th-century rural North Carolina.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on December 16, 2008).

Interview participants: Serena Henderson Parker, interviewee; Eddie McCoy, interviewer.

Duration: 00:46:51.

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. 157.7 kilobytes, 85.7 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series Q, African American life and culture, interview Q-0073, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Sally Council. Original transcript: 40 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.