Group Objects to KKK Leader's Name on Hall

Members of the On the Wake of Emancipation Campaign flooded the quad in front of Saunders Hall on Monday to protest instances of racism in UNC's history, using the building's namesake as an example.

The Freedom Legacy Project also has drawn up a petition to place a new plaque on Saunders Hall. The plaque would inform passers-by that the building is named after Col. William Lawrence Saunders, the founder of the North Carolina branch of the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War and a former member of the UNC Board of Trustees.

The plaque currently on Saunders Hall states that the namesake was the secretary of state, the editor of the Colonial Records of North Carolina and a member UNC's class of 1854 but does not mention Saunders' connection to the KKK.

The Freedom Legacy Project's goal is to enlighten students around campus about various forms of institutional racism and to urge students to take action.

"The purpose of the project is for UNC to be as historically accurate as possible," said senior Jermain Reeves, a leader of the Freedom Legacy Project. "The building makes Saunders out to be a good humanitarian, but he was a white supremacist."

Sophomore Monique Hall works with OWEC and helped lead Monday's protest. OWEC presented a list of demands, including a request for a truthful and inclusive depiction of history at the University, to Provost Robert Shelton.

Hall said something should be done about the building's namesake. "You think of buildings and monuments that are named after people who contributed to society in a positive way," she said. "When you think of Colonel Saunders, you think of lynching and hatred."

The project's leaders began circulating the petition Monday and will continue until enough signatures are obtained to show widespread support for the plaque to the administration.

The issue of institutional racism recently has evoked emotion from many students campuswide. Senior Kristi Booker, who founded Students Seeking Historical Truth last year, said the organization discovered that Saunders Hall was not the only racist symbol at UNC but that at least five other locations around campus were named after slave owners and Jim Crow supporters.

The group specifically brought attention to Saunders Hall by hanging nooses in nearby trees and decorating the building with KKK banners in October 1999.

Booker said students should be more educated about the less favorable aspects of UNC's history. "We should not hide these things but rather bring them out to the public and educate people so this won't ever happen again in the future."

Sue Kitchen, vice chancellor for student affairs, is in favor of replacing the current plaque with one that more fully represents UNC's history. "I am very supportive of using the buildings to give a more complete history," she said. "Understanding the conditions under which the University was built makes us appreciate it more."

Reeves said the plaque is necessary to let students know the truth about Saunders. "You can't give someone half of the history and portray that to be true," Reeves said. "Black students have to go into a classroom named after someone who killed their ancestors, and it isn't right."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.