Jones, MarkSouthern Oral History ProgramUnited States, North Carolina, Lincoln County, 35.48618, -81.22387Cherry, Steve, 1942?-1999-02-19Steve Cherry spent twenty-nine years in the Lincoln County, North Carolina, school system, eventually becoming principal of East Lincoln High School, where he remained from 1982 to 1996. Cherry also coached basketball for many years, and describes school desegregation from both a coach's and a principal's perspective. As a coach, he witnessed the abuse of black players by white players on the basketball court; he weathered threats from white fans angry that black athletes were competing; but he also saw the integrating effect of organized sports. As a principal, he endured brawls between white and black students, and juggled the new demands that the white and black communities placed on him. This interview provides an in-depth look at how desegregation played out on the basketball court as well as in the school halls, and shows the important role athletics played in expressing, and muting, racial tensions.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.text/htmltext/xmlaudio/mpegengForms part of Oral histories of the American South collection.http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/Basketball coaches--North Carolina--Lincoln CountySchool principals--North Carolina--Lincoln CountySchool integration--North Carolina--Lincoln CountyDiscrimination in sports--North CarolinaLincoln County (N.C.)--Race relationsOral history interview with Steve Cherry, February 19, 1999TextSound