- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with Julia Peaks de-Heer, January 8, 1999
- Creator:
- De-Heer, Julia Peaks, 1946-
- Contributor to Resource:
- Hemming, Jill
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1999-01-08
- Subject:
- African American women--North Carolina--Durham
African American neighborhoods--North Carolina--Durham
Community development--North Carolina--Durham
African Americans--North Carolina--Durham--Social life and customs
African American women in church work--North Carolina--Durham
Greater Zion Wall Church (Durham, North Carolina)
African Americans--North Carolina--Durham--Relations with Hispanic Americans
Durham (N.C.)--Social conditions--21st century
Durham (N.C.)--Race relations - People:
- De-Heer, Julia Peaks, 1946-
- Location:
- United States, North Carolina, Durham County, Durham, 35.99403, -78.89862
- Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Julia Peaks de-Heer spent her early childhood years in Stagville, North Carolina, before moving to Hopkins Street in Durham, North Carolina, during the early 1950s. Her father's new job at the Nello Teer Construction Company spurred the move, and de-Heer initially felt distraught over leaving the countryside. Nevertheless, she quickly felt at home in her neighborhood on Hopkins Street, largely because of the close-knit sense of community that developed among her neighbors. In addition to describing some of the activities, foodways, and the work of community leaders, de-Heer spends much of the interview discussing the role of the Greater Zion Wall Church, which was founded and built by the community members during her childhood. According to de-Heer, the community began to decline several years later when some of the homes were turned into boarding houses. The portrait she paints of Hopkins Street by the 1990s contrasts sharply with the neighborhood she knew in her childhood. After spending some time in Washington, D.C., and Virginia during the 1960s and 1970s, de-Heer returned to North Carolina in 1980 and began to attend the Greater Zion Wall Church again. de-Heer devotes the final third of the interview to a discussion of her continuing work with that church and her visions for its role in community improvement, focusing on the church's efforts to help disadvantaged children in the community and their growing efforts to bridge divisions between the African Americans in the neighborhood and the rapidly growing Latino population. Researchers should take note that this interview is divided into two parts, with the second part occurring three months after the first. As a result, there is some repetition and variation in de-Heer's recollections.
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/K-0146/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on Oct. 31, 2008).
Interview participants: Julia Peaks de-Heer, interviewee; Mrs. de-Heer's mother, interviewee; small child, interviewee; Jill Hemming, interviewer.
Duration: 02:10:02.
This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.
Text encoded by Kristin Shaffer. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers. - Contributing Institution:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)
- Rights:
-
