Q&A with past civil rights activist

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this Q&A quoted Charly Mann as saying he participated in a sit-in at Walt’s Grill. It was at Watt’s Grill. The Q&A has been changed to reflect this. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

At just 13 years old, Charly Mann — a Chapel Hill resident during the early ‘60s — took part in the March on Washington, where he saw Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

Mann spoke to staff writer Sam Fletcher about interviewing King as a 10 year old, being a Chapel Hill resident during segregation and his time as a protester.

Daily Tar Heel: What was King like in person?

Charly Mann: I just remember him being a very sweet man, certainly to take time out to talk to a 10-year-old boy and answer his questions. Even back then he must have been a fairly important person and had been jailed several times in Alabama for different things, but he was very helpful … I wrote an 80-page little book on him.

DTH: What was the state of race relations in Chapel Hill during the early ‘60s?

CM: In Chapel Hill at that time, most things were segregated that could be. There was no movie theater that blacks could get into. I would say most of the downtown restaurants did not allow black people to come into them.

DTH: What kind of challenges did you face while protesting in Chapel Hill?

CM: Most of the people who were in these marches were black … I was the only kid of any age who would march and participate in sit-ins. I started doing that in about 1962. And I got beat up. At one point I was at a place and we were trying to get the restaurant to open up so black people could eat there. It was called Watt’s Grill, and the woman who owned the place urinated on me.

DTH: After civil rights legislation was passed in ‘64 and ‘65, was there a smooth transition to an integrated society?

CM: The most conservative business in town, run by a man named John Carswell, called Colonial Drug Company … I think Mr. Carswell actually, because he had to begin serving black people, took his seats out of his restaurants … So you could come in and order, but you couldn’t sit down anymore.

DTH: You mention on your blog that you received threats from organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. Did these threats put you off protesting?

CM: I think that it did not really strike me as scary. I think until maybe sometime after the March on Washington when a few people said some pretty mean things to me and began throwing rocks at me.

After that I really did not integrate very well with the kind of people I wanted to be friends with … It did become difficult, and I think that had a large portion, looking back on it, on why I didn’t go to Chapel Hill schools after the seventh grade … I hitchhiked, at a pretty young age, to Durham to go to school there.

DTH: What class were you at UNC, and what was it like when you attended?

CM: I started in 1968. By then there were very few blacks going, and what really opened the doors I think to integration in the South was sports … I didn’t actually stay in UNC for very long because I was involved in what is called the anti-war movement, and I actually got arrested protesting … which cut (my time at UNC) short, and I went into the music business subsequently to that.

DTH: Was there any racial tension between the Chapel Hill protesters?

CM: Everyone got along well together, as I said. Most of the people were blacks. There were not many whites who were involved, but the whites who were involved certainly got along exceptionally well and integrated well. We did everything together like the March on Washington … We were pretty color blind to one another; there wasn’t any real black and white.

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.