Oral history interview with Diane English, May 20, 2006
Subtitle: interview U-0184, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Thuesen, Sarah Caroline, 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: 2008
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Community activists; African American women; Race relations; Community development; African American neighborhoods; African Americans; Housing; Social conditions
Other titles: Interview U-0184, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Diane English, May 20, 2006; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: This is the second in a two-part interview with community activist Diane English. Here, English describes her work with the Belmont Neighborhood Community Strategy Force (BNCSF), of which she was elected president in 2003. She discusses her efforts to redevelop the Belmont Community Development Corporation (CDC) to give residents more stake in their neighborhood. English expresses the difficulties of sustaining resident involvement; to help meet this challenge, she took classes to learn how to be a neighborhood leader. English says that the media drew public attention to Belmont, which assisted in the BNCSF's efforts to remove the structural barriers placed in the neighborhood by the police department to help prevent drug dealers from entering the neighborhood. She maintains that the barriers did more harm than good, as they detracted from the aesthetic appeal of the neighborhood rather than obstructing drug deals. Skeptical not only about such strategies, English also conveys her ambivalence about the police presence in Belmont. She also maintains that the city's bureaucracy limited the efforts of well-meaning residents to eliminate drug selling and other criminal behavior from the community, but she is hopeful for the future of Belmont. Though she worries that the revitalization of Belmont will increase property taxes, homeownership keeps her in the neighborhood. English ends the interview with a discussion of racial prejudice in Charlotte and the role of race in school curricula. She asserts that positive lessons from black history--instead of black animosity against whites--will bring about greater interracial cooperation.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 14, 2008).

Interview participants: Diane English, interviewee; Sarah Thuesen, interviewer.

Duration: 00:46:50.

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 Kristin Shaffer.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 90 kilobytes, 85.7 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series U, The long civil rights movement: the South since the 1960s, interview U-0184, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 23 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.