"Chatty" Hattie Leeper oral history interview 1, 2006 December 11

In the first of three interviews, radio DJ "Chatty" Hattie Leeper discusses her early life in the Third Ward and Brookhill neighborhoods in Charlotte, North Carolina. She describes her family and neighborhood, and her experiences attending the segregated Isabella Wyche Elementary School and Second Ward High School. While Mrs. Leeper speaks favorably about her time in school, she recounts painful episodes with a teacher in high school who would verbally and physically punish her for being shy, and describes how this experience sparked her determination to study hard and succeed in life. Mrs. Leeper discusses moving with her mother to Brookhill Village, where she developed a fascination with radio and began spending time at the nearby WGIV AM radio station around age fourteen. She explains how she organized record albums by genre, answered telephones, and paid gospel singers for performing on a Sunday program, and describes how she was very happy when the radio station began paying her for her contribution.