Title: Lucille W. Gorham and Lucille Gorham Sayles

Identifier: DAO50497   (https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/50497)

Description: Photographs of Lucille W. Gorham and Lucille Gorham Sayles taken at the Town Common, Greenville, N.C., accompanied by an oral history interview, for the Beyond Bricks and Mortar project. Lucille Gorham Sayles and her mother Lucille W. Gorham are former residents of the Shore Drive neighborhood that was destroyed in the 1960's to make room for the Town Common Park. Sayles recalls that the community was like a family, and everyone knew each other. They had everything they needed downtown except a pharmacy. She remembers the downtown barber shops, a grocery store, a dentist, doctors, and the clinic where her brother was born. Her father and grandmother were members of the Sycamore Hill Missionary Baptist Church. Her mother attended York Memorial Church. Sayles had finished college when the redevelopment process began. She thinks that it was good that they could have the park, but bad that they lost the community and its history. She remembers that some people became so depressed from the changes caused by redevelopment that they never recovered. The Lucille W. Gorham Inter-Generational Center on Fifth Street is named after her mother. Interviewer: Heather White.