Carrie Mae: An American Life

Carrie Mae Sharpless Newkirk was one of fifteen children in a sharecropping family. She attended the Chinquapin Colored School and dreamed of becoming a teacher.

Carrie Mae taught in Pender County's segregated schools, then in 1966 she became one of the first African American teachers to integrate a white faculty.

Her life reflects the major shifts in southern education after the 1920s.