Madge Hopkins, a graduate of West Charlotte High School and the vice principal of the school at the time of the interview, describes her experiences growing up in segregated Charlotte and desegregation at West Charlotte. Hopkins remembers the humiliating environment segregation created, but she describes herself as "traditional," she was reluctant to join student protests at West Charlotte being instigated by a younger generation of African American students. Her belief, at the time of the interview, that the majority-black West Charlotte was a separate and unequal school indicates her concern that the promises of desegregation might not yet have been realized.

The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata.

Title from menu page (viewed on November 5, 2007).

Interview participants: Madge Hopkins, interviewee; Pamela Grundy, interviewer.

Duration: 01:04:14.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Mike Millner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Forms part of Oral histories of the American South collection.