Kenan Memorial Stadium stands among many structures on campus that lack historical context

The University announced Oct. 3 the decision to change the plaques honoring William R. Kenan Sr. in Kenan Memorial Stadium, following a report by The Daily Tar Heel on Kenan Sr.’s involvement in the 1898 Wilmington Massacre. 

In the email announcement, Chancellor Carol Folt said the plaques would be changed to focus on the donor, his son William R. Kenan Jr. Specific plans as to how these changes will be made have not been announced. 

The Wilmington Massacre was a coup planned by white militia which killed between 60 to 300 Black residents. Kenan Sr., who led a machine gun squad capable of firing 420 bullets per minute in the massacre, was responsible for the murder of at least 25 Black people. 

UNC Media Relations Manager Carly Miller told The Daily Tar Heel in an email that the Kenan Stadium decision is part of a broader effort to contextualize the University’s history, including several buildings and places on campus. 

“The University is on track to update the plaques at Kenan Memorial Stadium in 2019,” Miller said. “During the fall 2018 semester, the University’s contextualization work has focused on the complex task of making a recommendation to the UNC System’s Board of Governors on the next steps for the Confederate Monument by Monday, Dec. 3rd.” 

The Chancellor’s Task Force on UNC-Chapel Hill History is in charge of changing the stadium’s plaques. 

The Daily Tar Heel reached out to Jim Leloudis, a member of the History Task Force, for comment on the process of updating the plaques, but did not receive a reply to the request at the time of publication. Neither Leloudis nor task force member Amy Hertel responded to The Daily Tar Heel’s request for comment in October either. 

On Monday, the UNC Board of Trustees and Chancellor Folt announced their proposal to place Silent Sam in a new, single-purpose building on UNC’s Odum Village site where it can be preserved and contextualized among other historical artifacts.

Shortly after the announcement, Folt sent an email further explaining the four-part plan and addressed the “continuing and expanding efforts to add historical contextualization to campus.” Future plans regarding the plaque-changing process in Kenan Stadium were not mentioned. 

“The Chancellor’s Task Force on UNC-Chapel Hill History has led this effort for three years. Many phases including restoring the Unsung Founders Memorial, fully contextualizing McCorkle Place, and creating digital historical materials,” Folt said. 

In October, Miller told The Daily Tar Heel the University didn’t have specifics yet on the timing or process of changing the plaques, and to “stay tuned for more details.” 

UNC Media Relations Director Joanne Peters Denny also told The Daily Tar Heel the Task Force had no plans to share at the moment. 

On University Day, Leloudis gave a brief update regarding the Task Force’s work, but did not mention plans for Kenan Memorial Stadium. 

“Our work on Carolina Hall and McCorkle Place is a part of a much larger undertaking,” he said. “Chancellor Folt and the Board of Trustees charged the Task Force with researching and teaching the full breadth of Carolina’s history, and there is considerable work yet to be done.” 

In 2015, the UNC Board of Trustees outlined their stance on contextualization in a series of resolutions used to change Saunders Hall to Carolina Hall. These resolutions also requested the creation of the history task force to examine names of campus buildings, monuments and other markers. 

In the three years since the task force’s formation, it has created the educational display in the lobby of Carolina Hall, and helped advise the recent proposal on Silent Sam. The task force is leading the contextualization at McCorkle Place, the Unsung Founders Memorial and the plaques at Kenan Stadium. No specific plans or time-frames have been announced for these efforts. 

In her campus email Monday, Folt said she knew not everyone would be pleased with the proposal for Silent Sam, but hoped the University could “come together to make this work.” 

“We have a long and important history to tell, and the Center will offer us an excellent opportunity to tell it all,” she said. “Our unique legacy demands that we be truthful and continue to examine and reckon with our past with our present and future – if we are to be the diverse and just community that is fitting for America’s first public university.”

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