Item Information
Title
Interview with Patricia Ricks, class of 1971, from an oral history conducted in 2016
Description
Interview with Patricia Ricks, class of 1971, from an oral history conducted in 2016 describing her experience as a Black female student. Performed by Kathy Williams.
Creator
PlayMaker’s Repertory Company in collaboration with the University Archives at Louis Round Wilson Library
Source
Interview with Patricia Elizabeth Ricks by MaKayla Leak, 2 March 2016 N-0047, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Series N: Undergraduate Internship Program, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/04007N/
Date
2021
Language
English
Identifier
https://exhibits.lib.unc.edu/items/show/7579
Transcription
Interview with Patricia Ricks, class of 1971
Moving into the dorm: the young lady who was placed with me as my roommate – she was no longer there with her family when we came up with the second load, and the week after I moved in, I received some flowers with a note from her saying that she was sorry about the way things happened; it wasn’t her, it was her parents who didn’t want her to room with me. And so I never really got to know her, but I would speak--we would see each other in passing, going to classes throughout the years, and we would always speak and smile, like that. And then after this young lady moved out, I was assigned a junior transfer student by the name of Glenda Lemons. And she was from Murphy, North Carolina, which I had never heard of, but she was so friendly and so nice and we got along fine.
The girls in the dormitory were very friendly. Again, it was a segregated situation.
(Restate Introduction for Social life)
I would go to all the basketball games, though, and my sister and I would get up early, I remember, and we would have to be there at six or seven o’clock in the m orning to get a good ticket. And so we would get up and stand in line so we could get tickets to the basketball game. …
And... the movies and going out to eat, that was fun. I don’t remember going to church that much, but I did enjoy coming home on the weekends, getting away and being back in the familiar territory at home in Durham.
in Chapel Hill, it was academically focused, like I said. It’s the main--. I mean, there was no if, ands, or buts about it. I knew I was there to get my lessons. And so it was like, oh, staying up late. I was introduced to coffee for the first time. I was introduced to No-Doz, so I could sleep--, I mean, so that I wouldn’t get sleepy while I was studying for an exam. And so that was mainly it, the studying. It wasn’t much social life for me there, with the exception of, say, the basketball games, and getting together with some of the friends that I had met, other African American students. And we were really concerned with politics and civil rights, and that was another issue that, I guess you could say that that took the place of an active social life, an extracurricular community life. Working with the Pine Street Inn, the cafeteria workers, trying to help them and trying to help get an African American curriculum in place. And we were successful at that.
...
Your first year at college you’re concerned about going out on dates, of course. And so everybody was--. That was a main thing, or it seemed like that was the main thing in a lot of girls’ lives. Going out on a date, maybe joining a sorority, going with a guy who was in a fraternity, that sort of thing. Because there were no minority sororities or fraternities at the time, so that was not an option for us.
...I don’t remember having that many dates in Chapel Hill, maybe a few. But most of the time I was in Durham on the weekends.
Moving into the dorm: the young lady who was placed with me as my roommate – she was no longer there with her family when we came up with the second load, and the week after I moved in, I received some flowers with a note from her saying that she was sorry about the way things happened; it wasn’t her, it was her parents who didn’t want her to room with me. And so I never really got to know her, but I would speak--we would see each other in passing, going to classes throughout the years, and we would always speak and smile, like that. And then after this young lady moved out, I was assigned a junior transfer student by the name of Glenda Lemons. And she was from Murphy, North Carolina, which I had never heard of, but she was so friendly and so nice and we got along fine.
The girls in the dormitory were very friendly. Again, it was a segregated situation.
(Restate Introduction for Social life)
I would go to all the basketball games, though, and my sister and I would get up early, I remember, and we would have to be there at six or seven o’clock in the m orning to get a good ticket. And so we would get up and stand in line so we could get tickets to the basketball game. …
And... the movies and going out to eat, that was fun. I don’t remember going to church that much, but I did enjoy coming home on the weekends, getting away and being back in the familiar territory at home in Durham.
in Chapel Hill, it was academically focused, like I said. It’s the main--. I mean, there was no if, ands, or buts about it. I knew I was there to get my lessons. And so it was like, oh, staying up late. I was introduced to coffee for the first time. I was introduced to No-Doz, so I could sleep--, I mean, so that I wouldn’t get sleepy while I was studying for an exam. And so that was mainly it, the studying. It wasn’t much social life for me there, with the exception of, say, the basketball games, and getting together with some of the friends that I had met, other African American students. And we were really concerned with politics and civil rights, and that was another issue that, I guess you could say that that took the place of an active social life, an extracurricular community life. Working with the Pine Street Inn, the cafeteria workers, trying to help them and trying to help get an African American curriculum in place. And we were successful at that.
...
Your first year at college you’re concerned about going out on dates, of course. And so everybody was--. That was a main thing, or it seemed like that was the main thing in a lot of girls’ lives. Going out on a date, maybe joining a sorority, going with a guy who was in a fraternity, that sort of thing. Because there were no minority sororities or fraternities at the time, so that was not an option for us.
...I don’t remember having that many dates in Chapel Hill, maybe a few. But most of the time I was in Durham on the weekends.