I’ve often walked from Franklin Street to Rosemary Street, down Roberson or Church or Graham Street and never realized I was crossing a former color line.

There are no obvious markers, just a few remnants of what used to be the Black business district on Rosemary, where the Northside neighborhood begins.

There’s First Baptist church, St. Joseph’s AME and its parsonage (now the Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History). They all were centers of Northside life during the long era of segregation, when these churches, though open to all, were attended only by black residents of Chapel Hill.

When I was teaching at East Chapel Hill High, I was not aware of any classes in which students learned about segregation right here at home. The Jackson Center’s staff has developed numerous educational programs in which Northside residents come to classrooms and tell their stories.

This past week…