Oral history interview with Brenda Tapia, February 2, 2001
Subtitle: interview K-0476, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Johnson, Jonetta, 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 American high school students; School integration; African Americans; Civil rights; Race relations
Other titles: Interview K-0476, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Brenda Tapia, February 2, 2001; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: The Reverend Brenda Tapia was one of the first African Americans to attend North Mecklenburg High School in Huntersville, NC. In this interview, she describes her experiences there and reflects on the effects of desegregation. Tapia's experience with desegregation was overwhelmingly negative. Moved from her black school after a successful sophomore year, she entered North Mecklenburg as an unknown, excluded from participating in clubs and marginalized in the classroom. By graduation night of her senior year, Tapia was furious. Her experience and observations led her to view desegregation as "one of the worst things that could have been done to [African Americans]." She maintains that though it changed the law, it did not change white Americans' attitudes, and she argues that its legacy is a black community sapped by discrimination.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on November 10, 2008).

Interview participants: Brenda Tapia, interviewee; Jonetta Johnson, interviewer.

Duration: 00:43:14.

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. 76 kilobytes, 79.1 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series K, Southern communities, interview K-0476, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript: 30 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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