Post by aggierattler on Sept 5, 2014 21:43:02 GMT -5
From the Greensboro News-Record: www.news-record.com/news/schools/at-uncg-a-name-carries-taint-of-past/article_a651e38a-34ac-11e4-8a05-0017a43b2370.html
At UNCG, a name carries taint of past
By John Newsom john.newsom@news-record.com
Posted: Friday, September 5, 2014 5:00 am
GREENSBORO — Could UNC-Greensboro change the name of Aycock Auditorium? The university plans to consider it.
UNCG Chancellor Linda Brady on Thursday said she will form a committee to look at the name of the university’s auditorium, which honors former North Carolina governor — and white supremacist — Charles B. Aycock.
Brady said UNCG has fielded no formal complaints about the Aycock name. But several other North Carolina colleges, including Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, have wrestled recently with buildings named for Aycock and others.
“I do believe we need to address this issue rather than waiting for the issue to be raised for us,” Brady told the Board of Trustees.
Charles Aycock, a lawyer, federal prosecutor and school superintendent, served one term as North Carolina governor from 1901 to 1905.
He was praised as the “education governor” for his support of public education and school construction across the state.
But Aycock, at the turn of the century, led white supremacy campaigns marked by violence against blacks and suppression of black voters. When it was over, Aycock had helped Democrats regain control of the state after a generation of Republican rule after the Civil War.
Aycock, who died in 1912, was later honored throughout North Carolina. In Greensboro, a neighborhood, street and a middle school carry the Aycock name.
Trustees of UNCG — then known as the North Carolina College for Women — decided in 1928 to name the school’s year-old auditorium for Aycock. UNCG officials say that Aycock was friendly with the university’s founding president, Charles Duncan McIver.
When the college’s largest residence hall burned in 1904, Aycock and the General Assembly quickly appropriated money to replace it.
In recent years, historians, college students and alumni have started to reexamine the historical figures whose names are on campus buildings.
Duke University trustees in June decided to rename a freshman dorm that took the Aycock name in 1912.
UNC-CH has a dorm named for Aycock, and students over the years have protested the presence of Silent Sam, a statue of a Confederate soldier. But the recent debate in Chapel Hill has swirled around Saunders Hall, an academic building.
Critics of the building’s namesake say that William Saunders, a UNC-CH graduate, helped organize the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina right after the Civil War.
East Carolina University also began looking at building names in the wake of Duke’s decision. ECU’s Aycock Hall, a student dorm named for the former governor, opened in 1960.
UNCG trustee Randall Kaplan of Greensboro said university leaders should consider an educational component to any discussion of the Aycock name. At Brown University, which his daughter attended, Kaplan said university leaders launched a campus-wide dialogue on race and related topics after historians found evidence that the Rhode Island college benefitted from slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.
“There might be other options other than keeping the name and not keeping the name,” Kaplan said.
Brady said the Aycock committee will include faculty and staff members and students. The chancellor said she hoped to give a report to the Board of Trustees by December.
Contact John Newsom at (336) 373-7312 and follow @johnnewsomnr on Twitter.
At UNCG, a name carries taint of past
By John Newsom john.newsom@news-record.com
Posted: Friday, September 5, 2014 5:00 am
GREENSBORO — Could UNC-Greensboro change the name of Aycock Auditorium? The university plans to consider it.
UNCG Chancellor Linda Brady on Thursday said she will form a committee to look at the name of the university’s auditorium, which honors former North Carolina governor — and white supremacist — Charles B. Aycock.
Brady said UNCG has fielded no formal complaints about the Aycock name. But several other North Carolina colleges, including Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill, have wrestled recently with buildings named for Aycock and others.
“I do believe we need to address this issue rather than waiting for the issue to be raised for us,” Brady told the Board of Trustees.
Charles Aycock, a lawyer, federal prosecutor and school superintendent, served one term as North Carolina governor from 1901 to 1905.
He was praised as the “education governor” for his support of public education and school construction across the state.
But Aycock, at the turn of the century, led white supremacy campaigns marked by violence against blacks and suppression of black voters. When it was over, Aycock had helped Democrats regain control of the state after a generation of Republican rule after the Civil War.
Aycock, who died in 1912, was later honored throughout North Carolina. In Greensboro, a neighborhood, street and a middle school carry the Aycock name.
Trustees of UNCG — then known as the North Carolina College for Women — decided in 1928 to name the school’s year-old auditorium for Aycock. UNCG officials say that Aycock was friendly with the university’s founding president, Charles Duncan McIver.
When the college’s largest residence hall burned in 1904, Aycock and the General Assembly quickly appropriated money to replace it.
In recent years, historians, college students and alumni have started to reexamine the historical figures whose names are on campus buildings.
Duke University trustees in June decided to rename a freshman dorm that took the Aycock name in 1912.
UNC-CH has a dorm named for Aycock, and students over the years have protested the presence of Silent Sam, a statue of a Confederate soldier. But the recent debate in Chapel Hill has swirled around Saunders Hall, an academic building.
Critics of the building’s namesake say that William Saunders, a UNC-CH graduate, helped organize the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina right after the Civil War.
East Carolina University also began looking at building names in the wake of Duke’s decision. ECU’s Aycock Hall, a student dorm named for the former governor, opened in 1960.
UNCG trustee Randall Kaplan of Greensboro said university leaders should consider an educational component to any discussion of the Aycock name. At Brown University, which his daughter attended, Kaplan said university leaders launched a campus-wide dialogue on race and related topics after historians found evidence that the Rhode Island college benefitted from slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.
“There might be other options other than keeping the name and not keeping the name,” Kaplan said.
Brady said the Aycock committee will include faculty and staff members and students. The chancellor said she hoped to give a report to the Board of Trustees by December.
Contact John Newsom at (336) 373-7312 and follow @johnnewsomnr on Twitter.
