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GREENSBORO - Some disgruntled residents of the Warnersville neighborhood picketed Monday outside Greensboro College, taking their case against the school's expansion plans to the court of public opinion.

But others who also claim to speak for the neighborhood said the dissenters are not thinking clearly about what is best for the city's oldest African American neighborhood.

At issue is the college's plan for a multimillion-dollar athletics complex built around historic J.C. Price School on Freeman Mill Road, one of the city's few pre-integration schools for African Americans still standing.

"I live right in front of the school, been there 35 years. I'm 77 years old and I don't want that over there," said Pearlie Hubbard, one of about 15 people who carried signs on West Market Street outside the college. "I don't care what kind of school or college, we don't want the noise and bright lights and things."

The protesters are unreasonable and simply don't want the college to use land it rightfully owns, said Kevia Gant, who has lived in Warnersville since childhood.

"Everything they wanted, we went to Greensboro College and got for them," said Gant, vice president of the Warnersville Historical and Beautification Society. "Now, they are just coming back saying they don't want Greensboro College, period."

The college announced plans several years ago to build a football field on the site it bought from GTCC in 2005 for about $2 million.

After neighbors raised questions about preserving the school and about the project's overall impact on the neighborhood, the college formed an advisory board including a mix of people with Warnersville ties, campus officials and other area residents.

The college re-emerged with plans last fall that scrapped the football field, preserved the former public school to house a museum of Warnersville history and developed the rest of the 30-acre site as a complex for other sports such as baseball, softball, tennis and long-distance running.

"Sadly, a small group of Greensboro residents have waged a long and unfortunate campaign against Greensboro College's plans for this project," Craven Williams, the school's president, said in a statement Monday. "This divisive campaign has included allegations that are untrue and painful for the Greensboro College family."

Several protesters carried signs Monday that said the school had shown "low moral values" in its handling of the matter.

A neighborhood survey taken after the college released its revised plan last year found 90 percent opposition, said Otis Hairston Jr., another long-time resident of the neighborhood.

"We're here today because we feel as though we have to send a message to the college and the citizens of Greensboro that this is just not acceptable," Hairston said.

But the college has bent over backward to make the project acceptable, said James Griffin, president of the historical and beautification group.

"If you look at what they are giving this community, it is more than what anybody would do," Griffin said.

Staff writer Amanda Lehmert contributed to this report.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com