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In 1941, an editorial ran in The Atlanta Constitution that described Josephus Daniels as "one of the gentlest and firmest of men."

While he achieved great aspirations, Daniels, whose name the Student Stores building bears, couldn't surmount the racist attitudes of his day.

"He was a fascinating, but complicated individual," says Harry Watson, director of the Center for the Study of the American South.

Born to Josephus and Mary Daniels in 1862, Daniels grew up in Washington, N.C. As a young man, he worked a variety of jobs, including picking cotton and clerking in a drug store.

Daniels entered UNC in the 1880s to study law, though he never practiced in his lifetime.

Instead, he moved to Raleigh and began publishing a small newspaper. He later became editor of The (Raleigh) News & Observer in 1894.

Daniels, however, did not limit himself to the newspaper industry.

Not only was he a longtime member of the Board of Trustees, but Daniels also served as the Secretary of the Navy during Woodrow Wilson's administration and as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Among his list of achievements, Daniels received the annual Carolina Israelite award on Feb. 22, 1946, "for distinguished service in the furthering of human rights and interfaith unity."

His longtime friend Bernard M. Baruch of Washington, an economist and a statesman, said at the ceremony that Daniels was a "man with heart as soft as a woman's, with mind as clear as a bell, with courage that fears neither man nor beast nor obstacle.

"He has never lowered his arm in a fight for what he thought was just A-- always in the interest of the weak and distressed of every color and creed."

Daniels wasn't always free of controversy, though.

In fact, he was involved in the Democrats' campaign supporting an amendment to the state constitution that barred black men from voting during the North Carolina election of 1898.

Daniels was editor of the News & Observer when the newspaper ran a series of editorials and cartoons that ridiculed black politicians and those who supported them.

In his 1941 book, "Editor in Politics," Daniels writes, "The News and Observer was relied upon to carry the Democratic message and to be the militant voice of White Supremacy, and it did not fail in what was expected, sometimes going to extremes in its partisanship."

But, Watson says, Daniels later apologized for his racist tactics in his memoir.

"By the time they wanted to name Student Stores after him, they weren't thinking of the 1890s," Watson said.

"They were thinking of the 'Here's one of the most distinctive men of the state that founded a newspaper dynasty that still lasts today,'" he said.

Daniels worked on the paper until his death in 1948.

Today, it still reigns as the primary paper in Raleigh.

 

Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.