- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with Charles M. Jones, July 21, 1990
- Creator:
- Jones, Charles Miles, 1906-1993
- Contributor to Resource:
- Egerton, John
Jones, Dorcas
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1990-07-21
- Subject:
- North Carolina--Politics and government
Chapel Hill (N.C.)--Race relations
Presbyterian Church--North Carolina
Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Civil rights workers--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Presbyterians--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Race relations--Religious aspects--Christianity
Civil rights movements--North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Racism--North Carolina--Chapel Hill - People:
- Graham, Frank Porter, 1886-1972
Jones, Charles Miles, 1906-1993
Jones, Dorcas - Location:
- United States, North Carolina, Orange County, 36.0613, -79.1206
United States, North Carolina, Orange County, Chapel Hill, 35.9132, -79.05584 - Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Charles Jones led the First Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill during the late 1940s. In this interview, he briefly describes his education and how he entered the ministry. He spends most of the time discussing the controversies that occurred during his tenure at the church. The regional presbytery disapproved of his decision to allow African American Presbyterians to attend the church and to provide shelter to Freedom Riders after they left Durham, North Carolina. Jones also went against church rules by not having his members read the Article of Faith during service. He describes how the presbytery tried to force him to move to another church, pledge support for the Article of Faith, and segregate the church. Some local whites, including students and faculty at the University of North Carolina, supported Jones throughout this process. Nevertheless, he was eventually expelled from the Presbyterian Church for his views on race and faith. The interview closes with his opinions on the inevitable failure of the "separate but equal" doctrine and whether John Egerton, the interviewer, was correct in seeing the period between 1945 and 1950 as a missed opportunity for improvement in race relations.
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. - Metadata URL:
- http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/A-0335/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 20, 2007).
Interview participants: Charles M. Jones, interviewee; Dorcas Jones, interviewee; John Egerton, interviewer.
Duration: 01:02:34.
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. - Contributing Institution:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)
- Rights:
-
