UNC commission recommends re-naming 4 campus buildings

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A commission at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has voted in favour of a recommendation to rename four campus buildings that currently have ties to slaveholders or white supremacists.

The recommendation from the Commission on History, Race & A Way Forward on Friday will go to school’s chancellor, who can then decide to forward it to the Board of Trustees, the Charlotte Observer reported. The board, scheduled to meet Thursday, is expected to discuss a policy to change the names of facilities on campus.

The four buildings at issue are named after men who “used their positions to impose and maintain violent systems of racial subjugation,” said history professor Jim Leloudis, who co-chairs the commission.

The recommendation comes after the university last month lifted a moratorium that had been in place since 2015 preventing the school from removing names on campus buildings that may be associated with slavery, segregation and white supremacy.

The newspaper reported the Daniels Building is named after former newspaper publisher and lifelong white supremacist Josephus Daniels, while Carr Building holds the name of Ku Klux Klan supporter Julian S. Carr. Carr gave a racist speech during the dedication of the Confederate statue on campus known as “Silent Sam,” which was torn down by protesters in 2018.

Aycock and Ruffin residence halls are named after former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock and Thomas Ruffin Sr. and Thomas Ruffin Jr. Aycock led a white supremacy campaign that suppressed black voters, according to the newspaper. The elder Ruffin was the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and enslaved more than 100 people.

Aycock led a white supremacy campaign that suppressed black voters. The elder Ruffin was the chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and enslaved more than 100 people, according to the newspaper.