When Donny “Hollywood” Riggsbee tells his story about growing up in Chapel Hill in the years leading up to and following segregation and the civil rights movement, his story takes some unexpected twists.

Like when he remembers his interactions with white college students. He recalls when he was a housekeeper in one of the student dormitories fondly, chuckling as he describes how they would drink beer together on Friday nights.

Or like when he describes his reaction to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and someone warns him that there’ll be riots in Chapel Hill:

“That ain’t nothing to do with us.” I said. He said, “There’s gonna be a riot, there’s gonna be a riot.” I said, “Oh, man, please, come on now. We ain’t about all that,” I said. 

Or when he says that his most important mentor was Big John, the owner of Colonial Drug. The…