Oral histories

Abstract

The Charlotte Hip Hop oral history project consists of interviews conducted by students in the Philosophy 3990 class taught by Dr. Mark Sanders. Interviews document the history of hip hop in the city of Charlotte and those involved in hip hop in Charlotte from its early days/ origins to the present, including local MCs, DJs/Producers, graffiti/visual artists & breakdancers.

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The Charlotte Jewish Historical Society, a project of the Carolina Agency for Jewish Education, collected these interviews, which are part of a much larger collection. The interviews feature prominent members of Charlotte's Jewish community who discuss the Jewish experience in the Queen City and chronicle the many changes they've seen throughout the twentieth century.

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This collection represents a wide-ranging mix of interviews that were conducted between the 1970s and the early 2000s to document many aspects of life and culture in the Charlotte region. Interviewees include prominent individuals from the Charlotte area such as journalists, business leaders, and activists, as well as many ordinary citizens representing different sectors of Charlotte society during the twentieth century.

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The Civil Rights and Desegregation in Charlotte oral history collection is a grouping of interviews that were conducted by UNC Charlotte Atkins Library Special Collections staff with activists for civil rights in the Charlotte area. The interviewees include prominent local members of the NAACP, as well as a high school principal, a civil rights lawyer, and a church minister.

Scope and Contents

For the Cultivating Common Ground project, middle and high school youth from the Wilmore neighborhood in Charlotte, NC, interviewed the senior citizens who work in their neighborhood's community garden. The teens documented the seniors' life stories and their interest in gardening on video and audio and also through photography.

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The interviews focus on the educational experiences of members of the African American community of Charlotte during the era of segregation. Many interviewees also discuss how things changed once segregation ended and their children’s school experiences.

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The interviews in this collection chronicle the significant changes that occurred in the Charlotte region from the 1930s to the beginning of the 21st century and were conducted by students in Dr. David Goldfield's history classes between 1990 and 2006.

Abstract In this series of sixteen interviews, Gail E. Haley, a prolific author born in Charlotte, North Carolina and the first of only two authors to win the American Caldecott Medal and the British Kate Greenaway Medal for picture book illustration, discusses her life and career as a children’s author and illustrator. Throughout the interviews, Ms. Haley describes her artistic process, detailing her inspirations and research as well as techniques she employed and pioneered in order to illustrate...

Scope and Contents The Historic Rosedale oral history collection includes interviews conducted by staff and volunteers at the Historic Rosedale house museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, with the goal of enriching the site's research, programming, and community engagement efforts. The project seeks to include diverse voices that speak to the varied experiences of Historic Rosedale's former residents, both free and enslaved, as well as their descendants, neighbors, community members, and contributors to the...

Abstract This collection of oral histories is composed of interviews with members of the International House, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping immigrants settle in Charlotte and facilitating international cultural exchange. The interviews were conducted by graduate student, Madison Rhinehart as part of her M.A. thesis in History in 2018 and 2019. Interviewees include executive directors, the program director, and a student intern. Topics discussed include personal motivations...

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Keeping Watch: City of Creeks includes video interviews with individuals, pairs, and groups of people about their experiences with Charlotte Mecklenburg creeks and rivers.

Abstract Native Charlotteans Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick and De Kirkpatrick discuss their ongoing journey together after discovering that their family histories were interwoven through the institution of slavery. Although they were both classmates at Myers Park High School in the mid-1960s, it was not until almost fifty years later that a newspaper article recounting the injustice Jimmie Lee had faced as a thwarted contender for the Shrine Bowl brought the two classmates into contact with each other. As...

Scope and Contents The Levine Museum of the New South collection is divided into thirteen series that cover a variety of historical topics related to the Charlotte region during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Museum staff, student interns and consultants conducted the interviews between 1990 and the early 2000s. Many of the series were created as an accompaniment to museum programming during this time, while others reflect a desire to document a disappearing local history. Subjects explored in...

Scope and Contents The majority of the Motorsports interviews were recorded between 2006 and 2009 on the recommendation of NASCAR photographer T. Taylor Warren. In addition to Warren himself, interviewees include drivers and their close relations, mechanics, pit crew members, and NASCAR employees. Topics of discussion range across the gamut of motorsports, and include motorsports as a pastime and as an industry; the nuts and bolts of racing; and the motivation and passion of drivers, their crews, and...

Abstract The Niner Nation Remembers Oral History Project is a collection of oral history interviews exploring interviewees' experiences and reflections concerning the April 30, 2019 campus shooting at UNC Charlotte, in which Reed Parlier and Riley Howell were killed and four others were injured. Participants in this project include UNC Charlotte students, administrators, staff, and faculty as well as first responders and law enforcement officers. Interviews cover personal experiences on the night of...

Abstract These interviews discuss the history and significance of open schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system. Coinciding with court-ordered busing and following a national trend in education, three optional open school programs were opened in Charlotte-Mecklenburg in the early 1970s, including Irwin Avenue Elementary School, Piedmont Middle School, and West Charlotte High School. From the beginning these schools were supported by a diverse parent body, including many community leaders,...

Abstract Robert E. Scoggin was grand dragon of the South Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Interviews were conducted by UNC Charlotte graduate history student Ruth Faye Griffin on behalf of Special Collections during 2004 and 2005 to document the life of Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Robert E. Scoggin. This small collection includes two interviews with Scoggin’s daughter, Peggy Scoggin Holland, an interview with his son, Jonathan Scoggin, and an interview with his...

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In 1979, UNC Charlotte history professor Dr. Edward Perzel and a handful of dedicated volunteers conducted oral history interviews with elderly citizens from across Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

Scope and Contents

The collection consists of 50 interviewse conducted by UNC Charlotte students for a class in African Studies taught by Dr. Robert Smith between 2004 and 2006. The project was titled "Talk, Listen, and Learn: The Charlotte African American Oral History Project," and the purpose of the project was to chronicle and collect the histories of a wide cross-section of African Americans in the Charlotte area from the middle decades of the twentieth century until the mid-2000s.

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UNC Charlotte graduate students conducted the interviews in this collection in 2004 and 2007 as the centerpiece of a class on “Oral History and Memory” directed by professor Karen Flint. The oral history project sought to document Brooklyn’s history, including social, cultural and economic aspects of the neighborhood.

Abstract This collection documents the history of several of Charlotte's inner core neighborhoods through the recollections of community members. Residents of Optimist Park, Washington Heights, and Druid Hills share their life stories and discuss their neighborhoods, offering insight into the significance of community, the human cost of neighborhood change, and the shifting landscape of affordable housing in Charlotte. As gentrification increases in Charlotte, a risk exists that the unique history of...

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The UNC Charlotte Institutional Memory collection consists of oral history interviews about the life and culture and UNC Charlotte. The collection includes interviews with and about Bonnie Cone, administration, faculty, staff, students, and alumni.