Interview with Alvin Forney

Interview with Alvin Forney

African American schools

African Americans

African Americans -- Civil rights

Autobiography

Champion International Corporation -- Employees

Forney, Alvin, 1954- -- Interviews

Industries

North Carolina, Western -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century

Paper mills

School integration

Segregation

Teachers -- North Carolina -- Haywood County

Western Carolina University -- Students

Al Forney was born in Waynesville in 1954. He attended the Pigeon Street School in his earliest years. Forney recalls how the staff at Pigeon Street School were strict yet loving. Teachers expected all their students to learn because they believed they were capable. Forney remembers playing sports after school with his friends in the field near the school. When Haywood County Schools integrated in 1967 in the period of desegregation, Forney went on to attend middle school at Waynesville Junior High. Upon graduating from Tuscola High School, Forney was a student at Western Carolina University for two years. In 1974, Forney began working for Champion Paper Mill in Canton where he still works today. Forney recalls how, although he was academically successful in the newly integrated schools, the loss of the Pigeon Street School hurt the African American community in Waynesville. People who used to do everything together no longer saw each other quite as much. Today Al Forney is involved with the Pigeon Multicultural Dev

Forney, Alvin, 1954-

WCU Oral History Collection - HIST 472

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

1960s; 1970s;

2017-03-24

Reid, Tristan

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

application/pdf; audio/mp3;

sound recordings

interviews

eng

Sound

35787

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/35787

2017-06-05

All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Hunter Library Special Collections, Western Carolina U, Cullowhee, NC 28723;

Haywood County (N.C.)

North Carolina, Western

Canton (N.C.)

00:25:39 (sound recording)(duration)

6 pages (transcript)(pages)

Oral Histories of Western North Carolina