Oral history interview with Kathryn Cheeks, March 27, 2003
Subtitle: interview K-0203, 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: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; School integration; African Americans; Race relations; Civil rights demonstrations; Schools; Education; Women; Chapel Hill High School (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Other titles: Interview K-0203, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Kathryn Cheeks, March 27, 2003; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Kathy Cheeks, a white woman who was in elementary school when Chapel Hill schools desegregated, remembers desegregation and race relations during this stormy time. Her memories of desegregation are rather hazy--she says that as a child, she did not pay much attention to current events, and that as a white child, she had little stake in desegregation--but she recalls clearly her fear of a certain black girl who threatened her throughout junior high, and groups of black girls who attacked white girls in the bathrooms. Cheeks's timeline is difficult to piece together, since she recalls desegregation during her very early years of school, but graduated in the early 1970s, just a few years after desegregation began.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 27, 2007).

Interview participants: Kathryn Cheeks, interviewee; Susan Upton, interviewer.

Duration: 00:30:58.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Mike Millner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 70.2 kilobytes, 56.7 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series K, Southern communities, interview K-0203, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 17 p.

Funding from the Institute for 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.