William Dallas Herring began his career in education politics on the school board in Duplin County, North Carolina, and eventually became chairman of the North Carolina State Board of Education. In Duplin County and statewide, Herring sought to consolidate school districts and give as much control as possible to local decision-makers. His devotion to comprehensive education (as opposed to choosing to support either vocational or liberal arts education) sometimes put him at odds with other board members and state leaders. In this interview, Herring describes some of these conflicts, offering broad pronouncements about education and the details of policy wrangling. Many of these details come in Herring's recollections about the growth of the community college system in North Carolina in the late 1950s and 1960s. Researchers should read this interview with its partner, C-0035.

The Civil Rights Digital Library received support from a National Leadership Grant for Libraries awarded to the University of Georgia by the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the aggregation and enhancement of partner metadata.

Title from menu page (viewed on July 30, 2008).

Interview participants: William Dallas Herring, interviewee; Jay Jenkins, interviewer.

Duration: 02:55:51.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South. It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner. Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Forms part of Oral histories of the American South collection.