Oral history interview with James Arthur Jones, November 19, 2003

James A. Jones, former principal of Prospect School in Robeson County, N.C., describes how integration affected this majority-Native American community. A redistricting controversy in the late 1960s revealed how much Prospect's Native American community valued their educational traditions, and they resented what they saw as attacks on those traditions, whether in the form of redrawn district lines or the enforcement of racial integration. Jones believes that mergers and integration have damaged Prospect School, dissipating its sense of community and poisoning the school with violent racial animosity. Like many older educators, Jones remembers a time of calm, when close ties between students, teachers, and parents strengthened his community. That time, he fears, is long gone. Some passages of this interview which do not deal explicitly with race in the context of education were not excerpted. Interviewers interested in this kind of information should look at the interview in its entirety.