Love, John Willie, 1943-

McNeill, Yvette

Charlotte, North Carolina

J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

2004-04-09

1 audio file (44:39) : digital, MP3

sound recording-nonmusical

spoken word

eng

John Willie Love was a 60-year-old man at the time of interview, which took place in his home in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was born in Chester, South Carolina in 1943. He was educated at West Charlotte High School, Mecklenburg College, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and was employed as a manager in sales circulation at the Charlotte Observer.

South Carolina native John W. Love discusses his life in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his personal experiences with segregation, the civil rights movement, integration, and race relations in the city. Originally from Chester, South Carolina, Mr. Love moved to Charlotte in the mid-1950s and attended segregated Charlotte City Schools before continuing his education at Mecklenburg College (later Central Piedmont Community College) and UNC Charlotte. Mr. Love returns to the topic of race and education throughout the interview, reflecting on the high value which the black community placed on education, the inequality of the segregated system, and the black experience with desegregation through busing. Although Mr. Love does not see himself as a civil rights activist, he acknowledges his significance as one of the first African Americans to integrate the workforce within both the Charlotte city government (the city engineering department and the post office) and the Charlotte Observer in the 1960s. He reflects on his uneasy position as a minority within these institutions and his awareness of prejudice within the wider community. He also remembers local and state civil rights activism and the retaliation of extreme white groups. In particular he recalls the death of his cousin Sandra Smith in Greensboro, who was killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1979. However, Mr. Love also recalls Charlotte's relative calm in comparison with other southern metropolitan areas, attributing this to successful communication that was facilitated by Charlotte's black leadership. Considering contemporary challenges with respect to race, Mr. Love notes that job discrimination was still a major issue at the time of the interview and he stresses his own experience of prejudice within recreational sports and in particular golf. During the interview Mr. Love also describes the vibrancy of the black community and black businesses in Charlotte during the 1950s-1970s.

MP3 access copy created on ingest from WAV preservation master file. Interview originally recorded on minidisc and digitized using Digidesign 003 rack.

Background noise present.

Newspaper employees
Surveyors

Love, John Willie, 1943-

West Charlotte High School (Charlotte, N.C.)
Northwest Junior High School (Charlotte, N.C.)
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Carver College (Charlotte, N.C.)
Central Piedmont Community College (Charlotte, N.C.)
Mecklenburg College (Charlotte N.C.)
Charlotte (N.C.). Department of Public Works. Engineering Division
United States Postal Service

Civil rights movement
Segregation in education
Racism
Race relations
Discrimination in employment
African American postal service employees
African American golfers

North Carolina--Charlotte
South Carolina--Chester

Interviews
Oral histories

Charlotte observer (Charlotte, N.C. : 1916)

1950-2010

Student project on the Charlotte African American community

Living Charlotte : the postwar development of a New South city

The materials included on this web site are freely available for private study, scholarship or non-commercial research under the fair use provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, United States Code). Any use beyond the provisions of fair use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly publication, broadcast, redistribution or mounting on another web site always require prior written permission and may also be subject to additional restrictions and fees. UNC Charlotte does not hold literary rights to all materials in its collections and the researcher is responsible for securing those rights when needed. Copyright information for specific collections is available upon request.

Digitization made possible by funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.

audio/mpeg

OH-LO0440