Oral history interview with Leroy Campbell, January 4, 1991
Subtitle: interview M-0007, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#40007)
Contributors: Wells, Goldie F. (Goldie Frinks), 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 school principals; African American schools; High schools; Administration; African Americans; Education (Secondary); Race relations in school management
Other titles: Interview M-0007, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#40007); Interview with Leroy Campbell, January 4, 1991; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: After traveling the world, Leroy Campbell entered the education field motivated to share his experiences. He became a high school principal at the all-black Unity School in Iredell County, NC, in the mid-1960s. In this interview, he responds to the interviewers' checklist of questions and offers his thoughts on the effects of desegregation on Iredell schools. Understaffed and underfunded, Campbell found support in a cohesive black community and a relationship with a county official who provided him with new school buses to drive the convoluted routes necessary to maintain segregation. The core of this interview may be Campbell's description of the black community's anxieties about desegregation, including the fear that the process would splinter the community and affect the quality of education. Their fears were well-founded, and Campbell ends the interview by recalling the closing of Unity School, the dispersal of its students, and his departure from the profession.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 2, 2008).

Interview participants: Leroy Campbell, interviewee; Goldie F. Wells, interviewer.

Duration: 01:10:40.

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. 88 kilobytes, 129 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series M, Black high school principals, interview M-0007, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 15 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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