- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with E. V. Dacons, March 4, 1991
- Creator:
- Dacons, E. V. (Ebson V.)
- Contributor to Resource:
- Wells, Goldie F. (Goldie Frinks)
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1991-03-04
- Subject:
- African American high school principals--North Carolina
High school principals--North Carolina
African American school principals--North Carolina--Wilkesboro
African American schools--North Carolina--Wilkesboro
High schools--North Carolina--Wilkesboro--Administration
School integration--North Carolina--Wilkesboro
Race relations in school management--North Carolina--Wilkesboro - People:
- Dacons, E. V. (Ebson V.)
- Location:
- United States, North Carolina, Wilkes County, Wilkesboro, 36.14596, -81.16064
- Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Ebson V. Dacons discusses his career as a black high school principal in segregated and desegregated public schools. He was the principal of Lincoln Heights High in Wilkes County, North Carolina, from 1964 until 1968. Dacons favorably describes the segregated schools as places of caring and autonomous teachers and administrators, where parents respected school authority. He describes a culture of self-sufficiency and mutual cooperation as a means of remedying inequitable resources. In 1968, the Wilkes County school board decided to reconstitute Lincoln Heights High into an integrated specialized school. Rather than move into a central office position, Dacons assumed a principalship at the new school, the Career Center, in order to remain within the larger black community. Initially, the school had limited gender and racial integration, but Dacons heavily recruited whites and females to the Career Center. Dacons regrets the loss of the power that he enjoyed as principal under the segregated school system and discusses additional differences in the organizational structures of segregated and desegregated schools. The interview ends with his discussion of the importance of mentoring black males.
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/M-0009/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 14, 2008).
Interview participants: E.V. Dacons, interviewee; Goldie F. Wells, interviewer.
Duration: 01:32:05.
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 Jennifer Joyner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers. - Contributing Institution:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project)
- Rights:
-
