GROUP INTERVIEW
RALPH CHAMBERS, JOHNNY BLAYLOCK, & IKEYA KEARNEY WILLIAMS
Interview Info
Date of Interview: 4-13-24
Interview Location: Classroom, located inside of Tompkins Hall on North Carolina State University’s campus
Narrator(s): (from left) Ralph Chambers, Johnny Baylock, Ikeya Kearney
Interviewer(s): R. Tapia, Griffin Lowry, Jeannene Matthews
Background on Interview:
This interview was recorded as part of a group interview day organized in partnership with graduate students in the linguistics program at NC State.
Explore Clips from this Interview
The Ball Field
“The ball field was huge—might have been, I’d say, about a good five, six acres. You could walk from one end of the ball field and go all the way to Washington School; that was the school, that ball field. We used to go out there and play.”
Ralph Chambers
“A Foreigner in My Own Community”
“Now when I go over there, I feel like a foreigner in my own community because I have to really try to memorize how things were, what building was there, what house was there, who stayed there, because there have been so many changes and high rises.”
Ikeya Kearney Williams
“It’s the Love”
“All those people, my ancestors, my family members, and everyone who was here before me, I don’t want all their hard work, their blood, sweat, and tears to be in vain.”
Ikeya Kearney Williams
Mount Hope Cemetery
“That’s home, that’s where I was born, and that’s where my resting place will be.”
Johnny Baylock
Union Baptist Church
“To have that church still standing today, providing spirituality and faith—it wasn’t just a building that someone came to on Sundays. It was a refuge, a place someone could find shelter, love, and healing.”
Ikeya Kearney Williams
Fourth Ward Culture
“We all had our ways of surviving, and we all did our dirt, but we still, out of that strength of Fourth Ward, it made us strong... that was our safe place. And the city took that away. And that was wrong.”
Johnny Baylock