Interview with Norma Kimzey

Interview with Norma Kimzey

African American schools

African American teachers

African Americans

Autobiography

Immigrants

Kimzey, Norma

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

Osborne, Elsie, 1903-1993

School integration

Schools

Segregation

Teachers -- North Carolina -- Haywood County

Norma Kimzey is a Scottish immigrant who came to Haywood County in 1968. She taught first grade at Hazelwood Elementary School and remembers Ms. Elsie J. Osborne fondly. After the consolidation of the Pigeon Street School, Ms. Osborne was assigned to teaching the second grade at Hazelwood Elementary School where she was the only African American teacher in a school of 500-600 children. Coming from a multicultural atmosphere in Scotland, the primarily white demographics of the segregated South came as a cultural shock to Kimzey. She recalled, "I remember feeling and thinking how would it be to be the only Black person in this all-white environment...there were fewer kids in Ms. Osborne's class, and of course we were all loaded with thirty-plus kids. One day, I just thought 'Well I wonder what's happening with that?’”

Kimzey, Norma

WCU Oral History Collection - HIST 472

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

1960s;

2017-03-18

Browne, Natalie

Carroll, April

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

application/pdf; audio/mp3;

sound recordings

interviews

eng

Sound

35802

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/35802

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

00:30:13 (sound recording)(duration)

8 pages (transcript)(duration)

Oral Histories of Western North Carolina