| Abstract |
In this interview conducted during one of her furloughs home, she discusses her background in North Carolina, her work in Baptist missions in the United States, and her appointment to Africa. Topics of discussion include educational work in Nigeria, transition of Nigeria to an independent country, dress and customs of natives, attitude of Nigerians toward foreigners, work as W.M.U. director for Northern Nigeria, influence of Islam in the region, and the growth of the Baptist denomination. |
| General note | Interviewer: Donald R. Lennon. Interview date: November 28, 1980. |
| Access restriction | No access restrictions. |
| Cite as |
Carol Leigh Humphries Oral History Interview (#OH0064), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. |
| Terms of use | Repository does not own copyright to the oral history collection. Permission to cite, reproduce, or broadcast must be obtained from both the repository and the participants in the oral history, or their heirs. |
| Acquisitions source |
Joyner- Gift of Carol Leigh Humphries. |
| Biographical note | Carol Leigh Humphries was born at the family home in Bethel Hill, Person County, North Carolina on 6 December 1923. She was raised a Christian, with Christian teachers at school and church, and was active in Bethel Hill Baptist Church. Humphries graduated from East Carolina Teachers College (E.C.U.) in 1944 with a A.B. degree in elementary education. After hearing a former missionary to China, Dr. Theron Rankin, speak at a conference, Humphries decided to make mission work her life's work. She became involved in the home mission work of the Southern Baptist denomination and worked with church programs in Wilmington, N.C., Louisville, Kentucky, and Dallas, Texas. In 1951 she was appointed by the Baptist Foreign Mission Board to work in Nigeria and became a fulltime worker with the Women's Missionary Union of Nigeria in 1953, and moved to Kaduna, Nigeria. In 1961, she moved to Jos, where she served as the Women's Missionary Union director for northern Nigeria. She was responsible for dispersing Christian literature to the Hausa people. In 1986, Humphries retired and returned to Person County, North Carolina. She continued to share stories of the time she spent in Africa, and was honored as the Emeritus Missionary by the Beulah Baptist Association in 1991. Carol Leigh Humphries died on 11 February 1992 of cancer at Person County Memorial Hospital in Roxboro, Person County, North Carolina. |
