Members of the Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward discussed the consequences of the University honoring alumni who enslaved Black people at Monday's meeting.
An issue that members brought up throughout the meeting was how to implement a strategy that will address buildings named after individuals with histories of racism on campus while not restricting access to historical information.
The University's Board of Trustees implemented a 16-year freeze on renaming buildings in 2015, after changing the name of "Saunders Hall," named after a former Ku Klux Klan leader, to "Carolina Hall." The BOT lifted the ban in June of this year, and Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said during the meeting that the Commission would provide recommendations on renaming to him and the BOT.
James Leloudis, a history professor at UNC, continued the discussion of renaming buildings by describing a letter from Emily Bingham, a descendant of Robert Hall Bingham, the namesake of Bingham Hall.
Leloudis said that in the letter, Emily shared concerns she had about the building being named in honor of Robert Bingham, a Civil War veteran who fought for the Confederacy.
Patricia Parker, the chairperson of the Department of Communication, responded to the concern.
“One of the reasons we wanted to bring this up to discuss is because we understand that things don’t happen instantaneously,” Parker said. “Research takes so much time, so we’re going to follow the protocol, but that should not stop us from at least thinking about how we would start to do some research on names that come to us.”
Kenneth Janken, a history professor at UNC, brought up the history of certain campus buildings. He said while Battle Hall was named in 1912, the plaques on Battle, Vance and Pettigrew halls came to the University during the Jim Crow era.
“The plaques were a class gift to the University, and it offers their career highlights in the Confederate army, secession era governor, all the stuff,” he said. “What was going on that the class of 1968 or 1970 — in the middle of all other sorts of social upheaval — thought that it was an appropriate gift to give it renewed prominence?”