Interview with Booker T. Sherrill

Interview with Booker T. Sherrill

African American schools

African Americans

African Americans -- Religion

African Americans -- Social conditions

Hotels

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

Segregation

Sherrill, Booker T., 1907-2003 -- Interviews

Booker T. Sherrill is interviewed by E. C. Smith (Edward Clark Smith) on June 6, 1987 as part of the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project. Born on September 1, 1907 in Hickory, North Carolina, Sherrill talks about his parents and their occupations. He recalls moving to Asheville in 1920 at the age of thirteen to live with his father where he worked his first job as a “bread and butter boy” at the Grove Park Inn. He attended school at Stephens Lee School, Bennett College, and Livingstone College. Sherrill describes working in major hotels such as the George Vanderbilt Hotel, Battery Park Hotel, Hotel Charlotte, and Langren Hotel. He talks about his occupation as a bellman at the Battery Park Hotel in Asheville from 1934 to 1972. He earned tips, provided room service, and mentions the treatment of blacks in the hotel industry. He also discusses segregated recreational activities, Asheville as a major health resort in treating tuberculosis, and church as an important part of African American community life.

Sherrill, Booker T., 1907-2003

Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project

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

1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1980s;

1987-06-06

Smith, Edward Clark

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

application/pdf; audio/mp3;

sound recordings

transcripts

interviews

eng

Sound

Text

35929

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/35929

2018-03-29

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

Buncombe County (N.C.)

Catawba County (N.C.)

Rowan County (N.C.)

North Carolina, Western

00:39:58 (sound recording)(duration)

9 pages (transcript)(duration)

Oral Histories of Western North Carolina