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UNC-Chapel Hill AMST 384 - Confederate Memory

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AMST 384 1st Edition Lecture 35UNC students demand new name for building honoring a KKK leaderhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/03/26/unc-students-demand-new-name-for-building-honoring-a-kkk-leader/?hpid=z5-“Saunders Hall is named after a former trustee who was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan”-dilemma of “how to balance a school’s history with the views of the people who live and work there now.”-William Saunders-colonel in the Confederate army-served as secretary of state-took steps to publish the colonial records of NC-Because of his contribution, UNC named a new building in the history department after him.-debate between positive effect of name change vs. whitewashing of history-Clemson University-“Tillman Hall was named after a politician who was a powerful white supremacist”-David H. Wilkins, Board of Trustees, announced Clemson wouldn’t rename the building,“saying there were more concrete ways to ensure that all students feel welcome and included on campus.”-“‘…other, more meaningful, initiatives should be implemented that will have more of animpact on the diversity of our campus than this symbolic gesture,’ he said.”-“‘Some of our historical stones are rough…But they are ours and denying them as part of our history does not make them any less so.’”-“‘Part of knowledge is to know and understand history so you learn from it.’”-“At UNC, student protesters proposed that Saunders Hall be renamed in honor of the writer Zora Neale Hurston, who was the first black student at Carolina before integration.”-a lot of comments on Yik Yak, social media, etc. about students of color/their campaign-“Because the board has so many older white men on it, she said, it may be difficult for it ‘to really conceive what it’s like to be a student of color or woman of color on campus and walk past Saunders Hall.’ – Tasia Harris, a senior from Brooklyn.”-tweet from @DNAllyn: “Hey #UNCBOT, keeping Saunders’ name doesn’t facilitaterecognizing his violent racism. It glorifies his violent racism. #HurstonHallBOT”UNC-Chapel Hill Students Want School to Rename Building Honoring KKK Leaderhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/unc-saunders-kkk-building_n_5223848.html-UNC named Saunders Hall in 1922-“Saunders was a UNC alum and a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.”-Saunders was known as the chief organizer of the KKK in NC and Chapel Hill and “led a ‘terror campaign’ intended to upend Reconstruction in the 1860s,” according to the Daily Tar Heel.-Saunders became a UNC trustee in 1874.-“Some students think there should at least be a plaque on buildings like Saunders,…and the Silent Sam memorial that acknowledges the sordid portions of the lives some of the people the infrastructures are named for.” Have a plaque that doesn’t just highlight the good stuff-Students created a petition and will present it to the BOT in May.-Students held a rally in April of 2014, demanding a plaque.-Dr. Lowry Caudill, chair of the BOT, said UNC “remains open to discussing changes with the students.”-Caudill: “It’s important to note that the University has a policy on renaming campus facilities, which would be our guideline in any such conversation.”-“The policy states: If the benefactor’s or honoree’s reputation changes substantially so that the continued use of that name may compromise the public trust, dishonor the University’s standards, or otherwise be contrary to the best interests of the University, the naming may be revoked. However, caution must be taken when, with the passage of time, the standards and achievements deemed to justify a naming action may change and observers of a later age may deem those who conferred a naming honor at an earlier age to have erred. Namings should not bealtered simply because later observers would have made different judgments.” UNC debates Saunders Hall name-Students say the name “perpetuates racism on campus.”-“A group called the Real Silent Sam Coalition has pushed for months to rename UNC’s Saunders Hall.”-“‘This is about power. This is about a struggle over who belongs at this university and who gets to make decisions about what happens here.’ –Dylan Su-Chun Mott”-Anonymous racist comments on Yik Yak are “evidence that the building debate had brought out a hateful response.”-“Frank Pray, student president of the UNC College Republicans, said the group supports removal of the Saunders name because the KKK was essentially a terrorist organization.” -“But the group does not support changes to Silent Sam, Pray said, which would dishonor ‘brave North Carolinians’ who were defending their land from the advancing Union army during the Civil War.”-“A bill filed in the state Senate would prevent the relocation or alteration of public monuments, memorials, plaques or artworks commemorating ‘events, veterans, or persons of North Carolina history’ except by approval of the legislature, the N.C. Historical Commission or other body responsible for the care of monuments.”-“Jim Leloudis, a UNC history professor, suggested that the university take ownership of its history by applying scholarship to curate places that have names rooted in a racist past. Law professor Eric Muller suggested that the university not rename the building but redesign it and turn it into a museum-like provocation to examine uncomfortable questions.”-Sanitizing history?-some say that erasing the past “would be a mistake for the education of future generations.”-"There seems to be a vast effort to sanitize our history, to remove the rough parts and gloss over the low points, because, well, I suspect that it makes us feel better about a history that we seem powerless to change," said Sam Fulwood, a black UNC alumnus and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, who argued against a name change.”-“There is no primary source material that confirms Saunders’ membership in the KKK, [trustees] said, but respected historians and the 1920 Board of Trustees declared that he was.”-“In 1871 [Saunders] was questioned by members of Congress about whether he was head of the so-called ‘Invisible Empire’ in North Carolina and refused to answer…”-“‘I Decline to Answer’ was written on his tombstone, according to the Dictionary of North Carolina


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UNC-Chapel Hill AMST 384 - Confederate Memory

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