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Object Description
Interview no. | R-0745 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | R.42. Special Research Projects: West Southern Pines, N.C. |
Project description | This is a collection of interviews conducted in 1982 by Nancy O. Mason of Southern Pines, North Carolina with residents of part of Southern Pines which used to be its own, predominantly Black township in the 1920s, called West Southern Pines. West Southern Pines was annexed back into Southern Pines in the 1930s, but the twenty-six interviews attest to the longevity of the West Southern Pines community. Both black and white residents of West Southern Pines tell their recollections of the incorporation of West Southern Pines and the daily lives of its inhabitants. |
Date | 6 May 1982 |
Interviewee | Britt, Haynes. |
Interviewee occupation | Managers |
Interviewee ethnicity | Whites |
Interviewer | Mason, Nancy. |
Abstract | Originally from Lumberton, N.C., Britt moved to (East) Southern Pines in 1929. His family of origin stayed in Lumberton, but Haynes moved with his wife and worked at the Pinehurst Hardware store. Britt describes West Southern Pines in that year as “dilapidated.” He relates that he was not particularly engaged in town politics and didn’t know much about the charter or the annex at the time. When asked whether he knew people who lived in West Southern Pines, he states that his family hired domestic workers from there, and that some from the West would frequent the hardware store to shop for supplies. Britt remembers the Depression being hard for everyone; many families had gardens, but people sometimes came by his house begging for food. Churches and civic clubs made up for the lack of public assistance programs. Britt recalled his time in the Army fighting in World War I at Verdun. At that time the Army was racially segregated, and his unit was relieving the black division, who were mostly in labor battalions. When asked what change he had witnessed to West Southern Pines, Britt responds, “The whole community has made progress in every way. They own nice homes now and they have better jobs. I suppose there is more variation among them than there is with the whites,” adding that some of the house quality in the white part of town has gone down over the years. This interview was conducted by Nancy Mason for the Town of Southern Pines on May 6, 1982. It is part of a series of interviews with people who lived in or around West Southern Pines as it had existed as a separate and entirely African American municipality from 1923 to 1931. |
Subject Geographic | Southern Pines (N.C.) |
Citation | Interview with Haynes Britt by Nancy Mason, 6 May 1982, R-0745, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
Description
Interview no. | R0745_Audio_1 |