Dial, Walter, 1931-

Murphy, Hope

Dial, Lillie, 1925-

Charlotte, North Carolina

J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

2004-05-12

1 audio file (1:51:40) : digital, MP3 + 1 transcript (43 pages)

sound recording-nonmusical

spoken word

eng

Walter Dial was a 74-year-old man at the time of interview, which took place in his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1930. He was educated at Second Ward High School, and was employed as a medical assistant and a purchasing agent.

Walter Dial reminisces about his childhood and youth growing up in Charlotte's Third Ward and attending local segregated schools in the 1930s and 1940s, including Isabella Wyche Elementary and Second Ward High School. Mr. Dial describes the white and black residents of Third Ward, and discusses other nearby communities, including Dilworth, Brooklyn, Blue Heaven, Greenville, Cherry, Second Ward, and Biddleville. He describes extracurricular activities he participated in during high school, including baseball, football, and working in the cafeteria; as well as recreation outside of school, including rollerskating and visiting young women in different neighborhoods. Mr. Dial also talks about racial tensions in Charlotte, including his experiences working as a teenager during the summer delivering telegrams and encountering hostile white youth and adults in North Charlotte (now this area is called NoDa). He describes the businesses in Charlotte's neighborhoods during the 1930s-1950s, and notes that many of the grocery store and other business owners in the black communities were white.

MP3 access copy created on ingest from optimized production master file. Interview originally recorded on two minidiscs and digitized using Digidesign 003 rack.

Purchasing agents
Medical assistants

Dial, Walter, 1931-
Dial, Lillie, 1925-

Isabella Wyche Elementary School (Charlotte, N.C.)
Second Ward High School (Charlotte, N.C.)
Mercy Hospital (Charlotte, N.C.)
Western Union Telegraph Company

African American neighborhoods
African Americans--Segregation
African Americans--Social conditions
Segregation in education
Racism
Race relations
Student activities
Manners and customs

North Carolina--Charlotte
North Carolina--Charlotte--Second Ward
North Carolina--Charlotte--Third Ward
North Carolina--Charlotte--Biddleville
North Carolina--Charlotte--Blue Heaven
North Carolina--Charlotte--Cherry

Interviews
Oral histories

1930-2010

The era before Brown v. Board of Education

Living Charlotte : the postwar development of a New South city

Lillie Dial oral history interview, 2004 April 19, J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (http://goldmine.uncc.edu/islandora/object/uncc%3A1870)

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Digitization made possible by funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.

audio/mpeg

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