The Men Behind the Names
Many campus buildings honor white supremacists, but four top the list for renaming, according to the University Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward.
Susan Hudson, The Well, Friday, July 17th, 2020
While the racist and white supremacist namesakes of dozens of areas on Carolina’s campus have been discussed for decades, the debate has gained momentum in recent years as other universities and communities have removed statues and renamed buildings. On July 10 — just weeks after the University’s Board of Trustees overturned a moratorium on renaming buildings — the University Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward recommended that the names of four white supremacists with particularly shameful histories be removed from campus.
“This is a first step, but it is a beginning,” said commission Co-Chair James Leloudis, a history professor who presented the evidence about the four men on the list: Charles Brantley Aycock, Julian Shakespeare Carr, Josephus Daniels and Thomas Ruffin Sr.