William Friday

Title

William Friday

Description

William “Bill” Friday served as president of the UNC system from 1957-1986. Friday has 25 interviews as part of the Southern Oral History Program. In this interview, he discusses the UNC system’s interaction with HEW. Friday suggests the HEW saw a “weakness” in North Carolina because of the restructuring in the UNC system allowed HEW to file one lawsuit instead of 16. He felt that HEW’s plan to strategically place programs, “torpedoes any sense of academic program integrity.” By looking only at numerical formulas, Friday felt that HEW created a “no win” situation. (pg. 14 and 32-34)

Creator

Southern Oral History Project

Source

Interview with William Friday by William Link, February 20, 1991. L-0151, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/sohp&CISOPTR=2861&CISOBOX=1&REC=14

Date

1991-02-20

Format

Interview

Type

oral history

Identifier

ccl201

Interviewer

William Link

Interviewee

William Friday

Transcription

WILLIAM LINK:
And the fact that you had five black institutions —

WILLIAM FRIDAY:
Made it all the more important. We had more historically black schools than any other southern state had. And that made us more conspicuous in it.

WILLIAM LINK:
Which reflected — as an irony here, also, it reflected the high level of public commitment to black education?

WILLIAM FRIDAY:
Oh, sure.

WILLIAM LINK:
More than other states?

WILLIAM FRIDAY:
Oh, everything that you would normally look for, as a good faith expression, was there, in terms of tangible commitment. What was not there was a record of the state making certain that the program that was there, and the facilities that were there, were at least comparable at a minimum level.

Original Format

interview

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Citation

Southern Oral History Project, “William Friday,” The State of History, accessed March 29, 2024, https://soh.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/233.