- Collection:
- Oral Histories of the American South: The Civil Rights Movement
- Title:
- Oral history interview with Louise Pointer Morton, December 12, 1994
- Creator:
- Morton, Louise Pointer, 1910-2001
- Contributor to Resource:
- McCoy, James Eddie (James Edward), 1942-
Southern Oral History Program - Date of Original:
- 1994-12-12
- Subject:
- African American women--North Carolina-- Granville County
African Americans--North Carolina--Granville County--Social life and customs
Country life--North Carolina--Granville County - People:
- Morton, Louise Pointer, 1910-2001
- Location:
- United States, North Carolina, Granville County, 36.30402, -78.65302
- Medium:
- transcripts
sound recordings
oral histories (literary works) - Type:
- Text
Sound - Format:
- text/html
text/xml
audio/mpeg - Description:
- Louise Pointer Morton was born in Granville County, North Carolina, in 1910. Morton begins the interview by describing her grandmother's role in the founding of the Jonathon Creek Church (intermittently called the Johnson Creek Church in the interview). Although she does not recall the specific date of the church's construction, Morton explains that her grandmother acquired land for the church from the Pittard family, to whom she was enslaved and seems to have continued to work for following her emancipation. With the gift of land, Morton and other African Americans in the community built a log church. The church was eventually replaced and a school for local African American children was also built on the land. Morton's grandmother had purchased five acres by the church and the school, where she raised her nine children and where many of her grandchildren also lived. Morton describes growing up in this community, relating her school and church experience and life without electricity or running water. Despite the lack of luxuries, Morton recalls with fondness how the community gathered to socialize and to work together during corn shuckings, and she expresses pride in her family's self-sufficiency. Additionally, in her recollections of the Jonathon (Johnson) Creek Church, Morton throws into relief the centrality of religion as a preeminent social institution within southern African American communities.
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/Q-0067/menu.html
- Language:
- eng
- Extent:
- Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 2, 2008).
Interview participants: Louise Pointer Morton, interviewee; Eddie McCoy, interviewer.
Duration: 00:47:42.
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:
-
