It’s been only a year and a half since the summer of 2015, when the Board of Trustees placed a moratorium on renaming buildings and removing statues.
Unless these moratoriums are dropped, it will not be until 2031 until Carolina Hall, or any other building, can be renamed. Thanks to the North Carolina General Assembly, the removal of statues might be banned for even longer.
The moratorium came during a time of increased activism around the renaming, removal and contextualization of Confederate statues on campus as an effort to stave off these protests and hide the institutional racism on this campus.
In the new school year, it’s crucial for every student who wants to see Hurston Hall, remove Silent Sam and end the Confederate glorification on campus to keep these conversations alive and inform new students about the fight for renaming.
This campus needs to know about The Real Silent Sam Coalition — how activists captured state and national attention with #WeDemandUNC and how their efforts led to the renaming of Saunders Hall.
These activists proved change can happen. Now, with these laws, change is more difficult, but it is not impossible. We still have ways to lobby for the cause.
The fight for contextualization, while not perfect, is still available to raise awareness of racism’s legacy on campus.
We look forward to what the Chancellor’s Task Force on UNC-CH History will do, and we hope their plans come to fruition. Simply putting plaques and museums across campus will not be the end of this conversation, but it’s a start.
Ultimately, by making ourselves heard, we ensure the General Assembly and the University know we have not given up.
