William Hamlin:
I was one of the persons along with Dorothy Counts and several other persons who went to the integrated schools when they - Dorothy went when she was in high school - but I was supposed to go to Alexander Graham Bell Junior High which was across the street on Morehead where the central YMCA is located. Over that summer, my father and our family experienced a lot of racial threats and whatever. And my father sent us to South Carolina to be with his parents and then later to Richmond to be with my mother's parents. When we came back to Charlotte he actually had moved us from Liberty Street which was in the Second Ward area, which was supposed to go to, I was supposed to go to Alexander Graham Bell, over into the district that included Northwest which fed into West Charlotte.

Pamela Grundy (interviewer):
Well, that's interesting. Now had you applied to go to Alexander Graham?

William Hamlin:
Yes, I had, through the NAACP. I think all of us had, actually had, to make application. And I was one of those persons that the NAACP put up to go to those schools. I don't know much about the application process. But I know that my mother and father were deeply involved in ensuring that I had the opportunity though, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to go.

- William Hamlin, West Charlotte High School, Class of 1963

Interview with Pamela Grundy, May 29, 1998. Southern Oral History Project, UNC. Full text of interview.