Chronology

UNC's School of Law founds the Center for Civil Rights with Julius Chambers as its first director

The UNC School of Law established the Center for Civil Rights in Chapel Hill in 2001, with Julius Chambers as its first director, Dean Gene Nichol, and John Charles Boger as deputy director. The center worked on inequalities facing minority and low-income communities.

Subject: UNC School of Law

A state highway marker for Elizabeth Keckly goes up on North Churton Street in Hillsborough

North Carolina highway marker G-115, cast in 2002, stands on North Churton Street at Union Street in Hillsborough. It records Keckly as a Burwell family slave who lived there in the 1830s, bought her freedom in 1855, dressed Mary Todd Lincoln and published her memoir in 1868.

Harvey Beech receives the General Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Medal

The General Alumni Association awarded Beech its Distinguished Service Medal in 2002. The citation, read at the Annual Alumni Luncheon, called him the inspiration behind the Black Alumni Reunion and noted the scholarship endowment he set up at the university.

Orange County agrees to build a new construction and demolition landfill tied to a recycling ordinance

Because the construction and demolition landfill on Eubanks Road would fill around 2003, the Board of Commissioners agreed to build a new one only if certain bulky materials had to be recycled. The Regulated Recyclable Materials Ordinance took effect on October 1, 2002.

Frances Hargraves dies at her Caldwell Street home

Frances Neal Hargraves, a retired Chapel Hill-Carrboro teacher and community volunteer, died at her home on Caldwell Street. Her funeral at St. Paul AME Church, where she had taught Sunday school for 53 years, filled the church and its annex, and the church planned a memorial garden in her name.

Subject: St. Paul AME Church

UNC public health students complete a community study of Fairview

After interviewing residents in 2001 and 2002, students in the UNC Department of Health Behavior and Health Education issued an action-oriented community diagnosis of Fairview. It is one of the few written histories of Hillsborough's northern Black neighborhoods.

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

Randall Kenan teaches creative writing on the UNC faculty

Kenan joined UNC's English and Comparative Literature faculty full time in 2003 and taught fiction, nonfiction and food writing until his death in August 2020 at his home in Hillsborough.

Charles E. Daye receives the Thomas Jefferson Award

Law professor Charles E. Daye won the Thomas Jefferson Award in 2004, the year after he co-authored a brief that helped persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve affirmative action in college and university admissions.

Valerie Foushee is elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners

Foushee served on the Orange County Board of Commissioners from 2004 to 2012. Her official House biography says she was the first African American woman to chair the county commission.

Chapel Hill enacts the Northside neighborhood conservation district

After residents asked for protection from student-rental conversions, the council enacted the town's first neighborhood conservation district, a zoning overlay limiting house size and height in Northside. An advisory committee drafted it through 2003 before a January 21, 2004 public hearing.

John Dee Holeman plays a free blues concert at Graham Memorial

John Dee Holeman, accompanied by Billy Stevens, played a free noon concert at Graham Memorial on September 30, 2004, in the Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence's Thursdays on the Terrace series. Many of that semester's concerts tied in with William Ferris's course on Southern music.

People: William R. Ferris

Subject: Graham Memorial

UNC retires the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award after Yonni Chapman's campaign

Chancellor James Moeser retired the Bell Award, given yearly since 1994 to a woman for outstanding contributions to the university, after graduate student Yonni Chapman led a campaign against it over Spencer's white supremacist and sexist views.

People: James Moeser · Cornelia Phillips Spencer

Chapel Hill renames Airport Road as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard

At a ceremony beginning outside Town Hall, Airport Road became Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the small Martin Luther King Street became Jackie Robinson Street. Fred Battle, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, had led the push for the change after noticing that the only public facilities named for Black people were in Black neighborhoods.

People: Bill Thorpe

The Strayhorn house in Carrboro joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Strayhorn house in Carrboro on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. Check whether this is the Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House before linking.

Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

UNC Libraries opens the exhibit Slavery and the Making of the University

University archivists mounted an exhibit on the enslaved and free Black people who built and served the early university, including cabinetmaker Thomas Day and poet George Moses Horton.

People: George Moses Horton

Subject: UNC Libraries

The Unsung Founders Memorial is dedicated in McCorkle Place

The Class of 2002's gift, a black granite table held up by 300 bronze figures by artist Do-Ho Suh, honors the people of color, bond and free, who helped build the university.

People: Do-Ho Suh

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

Joal Hall Broun serves as Carrboro's mayor pro tem

Town budget documents for fiscal years 2006-07 and 2007-08 list Alderman Joal Hall Broun as mayor pro tempore, serving under Mayor Mark Chilton.

People: Mark Chilton · Joal Hall Broun

Bill Thorpe petitions the council to name the post office plaza for local activists

Council member Bill Thorpe presented a petition to rename the Franklin Street post office plaza for Charlotte Adams and Joe and Lucy Straley, an idea born at Joe Straley's memorial service. The council chose to hold a public hearing, and its naming committee proposed naming the plaza for an ideal with plaques for local peace and justice activists.

People: Joe Straley · Lucy Straley · Charlotte Adams

Subject: Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza

Chapel Hill enacts the Pine Knolls neighborhood conservation district

The council voted 9-0 to adopt Ordinance O-7 creating the Pine Knolls district, which bans new duplexes, caps floor area at 2,500 square feet and reduces front-yard parking. The Greenwood and Kings Mill/Morgan Creek districts were adopted the same night.

A state highway marker for Billy Strayhorn goes up in Hillsborough

The North Carolina Office of Archives and History put up marker G-125 on South Churton Street. It calls Strayhorn a jazz composer and pianist who wrote Take the A Train for the Duke Ellington Orchestra and points a quarter mile west to his boyhood home site.

St. Joseph CME Church and UNC begin the Northside oral history partnership

Rev. Troy Harrison and UNC professor Della Pollock began collecting oral histories in Northside, the project that grew into the Marian Cheek Jackson Center.

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

The Robert and Pearl Seymour Center opens on Homestead Road

The Chapel Hill senior center that Robert Seymour founded opened in a new building on Homestead Road in 2007 and was named for him and his wife, Pearl.

UNC holds the first Chuck Stone workshop for high school students

The journalism school's Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media held its first workshop for rising high school seniors in 2007, honoring the professor who had retired two years earlier.

Beverly Scarlett is sworn in as a district court judge for Orange and Chatham counties

Appointed by Governor Mike Easley on January 19, 2007, Scarlett was sworn in to a new District 15B seat added for the growing caseload. She was Orange County's first African American district court judge.

Lightnin' Wells and John Dee Holeman play the Hillsborough Arts Council's Traditional Music Series

The Hillsborough Arts Council's 2007 Traditional Music Series presented Lightnin' Wells and John Dee Holeman at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 24, 2007, at the Masonic Lodge, 142 West King Street, in downtown Hillsborough.

Subject: Eagle Lodge

Orange County commissioners vote to put a waste transfer station at the Eubanks Road landfill

The board voted unanimously to develop a solid waste transfer station at the landfill site, following its Solid Waste Advisory Board's recommendation, over objections from Rogers Road residents. The landfill was then expected to fill in 2010.

People: Mike Nelson · Robert Campbell · Valerie Foushee

Carrboro rewrites its density bonus for affordable housing

Section 15-182.4 of Carrboro's Land Use Ordinance sets a goal that at least 15 percent of units in new residential developments be affordable and offers density bonuses or payments in lieu to meet it. The section was rewritten on June 26, 2007.

Commissioners reopen the search for a transfer station site

After Rogers Road residents and the Coalition to End Environmental Racism pressed the county, the Board of Commissioners announced it would reopen its search for a transfer station site. Eubanks Road stayed on the list while consultant Olver Inc. drew up siting criteria.

People: Robert Campbell

Lee Smith, Randall Kenan and Allan Gurganus gather with other authors at Brick Alley Books

Kenan, Lee Smith and Allan Gurganus shared stories at a gathering of authors at Brick Alley Books in Hillsborough. The Daily Tar Heel used the evening to report on the town as a home for writers, quoting Smith, Gurganus, Kenan, poet laureate Mike Troy and photographer Elizabeth Matheson.

People: Lee Smith · Allan Gurganus

David Caldwell retires as a sheriff's lieutenant to organize in Rogers Road full time

Caldwell joined the sheriff's department in 1985 after returning to the area and retired as a lieutenant in 2008 to work full time on community and social justice work. He became project director and community organizer for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association.

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

Valerie Foushee finishes her UNC degree

Foushee had left the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after two years and returned later to finish, graduating in 2008 with a degree in political science and African and Afro-American studies. She was by then an Orange County commissioner.

Fred Battle steps down as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP

Fred Battle announced his resignation as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP after almost fifteen years in the post, during which he helped revive the branch. First vice president Eugene Farrar was to succeed him on June 1.

Commissioners drop Eubanks Road and choose two other transfer station candidates

Conceding that the 2007 choice had not adequately weighed its effect on Rogers Road, the commissioners voted 5 to 1 to pursue two other sites, the 143-acre Howell property and an OWASA tract in Bingham Township.

Marian Cheek Jackson Center opens at St. Joseph CME Church

The Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History held its ribbon cutting on the second floor of the H.W. Baldwin Fellowship Hall at St. Joseph C.M.E. Church. It is named for Marian Cheek Jackson, the church historian and lifelong Pine Knolls resident.

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

The Greenbridge condominium towers topped out on West Rosemary Street

The 10-story and 7-story Greenbridge towers, with 98 condominium units, rose on the former Black business block that had held the Mason Motel. Northside residents opposed the project in an open letter, and restaurant owner Mildred "Mama Dip" Council said rising property values threatened her business.

People: Mildred Council

Chapel Hill dedicates the Peace and Justice Plaza marker

The town unveiled a granite marker at Peace and Justice Plaza, in front of the old post office on Franklin Street, naming nine local activists: Charlotte Adams, Hank Anderson, James Brittian, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley and Gloria Williams. The Town Council had named the plaza in 2006 and set criteria for later honorees.

People: James Brittian · Mildred Ringwalt · Hubert Robinson · Joe Straley · Lucy Straley · Gloria Williams · Charlotte Adams

Subject: Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza

Commissioners vote to truck county trash to Durham's transfer station

After OWASA refused to sell or swap land for a transfer station and Chapel Hill withdrew its Millhouse Road property, the Board of Commissioners voted to haul county trash to Durham's transfer station for three to five years while the towns and county weighed a longer-term plan.

RENA opened its first community center on Edgar Road

Three years after incorporating as a nonprofit, the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association opened a small community center on Edgar Road so the neighborhood had a place of its own to gather and run programs.

Part of Historic Rogers Road neighborhood · 25 events

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

Ralph Frasier speaks at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center

Ralph Frasier, one of UNC's first three Black undergraduates, gave a free public talk in the Hitchcock Room of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. He had left the university in 1958 without a degree.

Subject: Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center)

Daniel H. Pollitt dies in Chapel Hill

Pollitt died in Chapel Hill on March 5, 2010. His honors included the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the Thomas Jefferson Award and the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Chapel Hill adopts an inclusionary zoning ordinance

The Town Council unanimously passed an ordinance requiring for-sale developments of five or more units to make 10 to 15 percent of them affordable to households earning 65 to 80 percent of area median income, or to give land, housing or cash in lieu. It took effect in 2011 and does not cover rental projects.

UNC honors its first three Black undergraduates, 55 years on

John Lewis Brandon and LeRoy and Ralph Frasier returned to UNC for a weekend of tributes marking 55 years since they enrolled, including a Friday dinner at which the Rev. William Barber called them heroes.

People: LeRoy Frasier · Ralph Frasier · William J. Barber II

Brick memorial holding three recovered gravestones is dedicated at Margaret Lane Cemetery

A brick monument designed and built by town employee Sam Dunevant was unveiled at the cemetery entrance, holding three gravestones recovered during earlier restoration, for Daniel Whitted, W. O. Parker and Nancy Wheatting. About fifty people attended, including descendants, and Mayor Tom Stevens spoke.

Subject: Margaret Lane Cemetery

Orange County commissioners raised the landfill tipping fee to pay for Rogers Road remediation

Commissioners raised the tipping fee from $52 to $57 a ton to create a remediation fund of about $50,000 to $60,000 a year for water and sewer connections, cleanup of illegal dumping and a community center in Rogers Road. The county also moved $750,000 out of its solid waste reserve for the same purpose. Chapel Hill and Carrboro objected to the timing of the fee.

People: Robert Campbell · Mark Kleinschmidt

Council freezes building in Northside and Pine Knolls for six months

The council voted 7-0 for a six-month development moratorium in Northside and Pine Knolls, backdated to May 23, 2011, while a community plan was drafted. Jackson Center staff helped organize residents in support.

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

Rebecca Clark's name is added to the Peace and Justice Plaza plaque

Clark, Yonni Chapman, the Rev. Charles M. Jones and Dan Pollitt were honored after their deaths for their work for civil rights, social justice and equality in Chapel Hill. Their names were added to the plaque at Peace and Justice Plaza, in front of the historic post office on Franklin Street.

People: Yonni Chapman · Charles M. Jones · Daniel H. Pollitt

Subject: Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza

Demonstrators re-read Julian Carr's 1913 dedication speech at the monument and unveil a mock plaque

A campus demonstration read Carr's dedication-day speech aloud at the statue and unveiled a new plaque of its own giving the monument's history. The Daily Tar Heel reported a further Real Silent Sam movement protest on the statue's history later that month.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

Commissioners decide not to extend the life of the landfill

The Board of Commissioners voted not to extend the landfill and approved cleanup of 50 illegal dump sites. In April 2011 it had postponed a decision on deepening the landfill, which could have added capacity to 2018.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board decides to build a new Northside Elementary on the old school's site

The board announced a new elementary school on the grounds of the Northside school that had closed in 1966, to carry the Northside name. Black families in the Northside neighborhood, whose children had been bused to other schools for decades, welcomed it as a return of their school.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Northside School

Council adopts the Northside and Pine Knolls community plan

The council approved three resolutions under the plan, amending both conservation districts with building rules effective February 1, 2012 and a four-vehicle-per-lot parking limit effective September 1, 2012.

Commissioners set the landfill's closing date and created the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force

On the night the Orange County commissioners voted to close the landfill on June 30, 2013, they also authorized an eight-member task force, with two members each from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, the county and RENA, to recommend how to deliver sewer service and a community center and how to guard against displacement. An interim report was due that August and a final report to the Assembly of Governments on December 6, 2012.

People: Penny Rich

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

The school board votes 5-2 for the attendance plan that fills the new Northside Elementary

After two months of public hearings on four draft plans, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board chose Plan 2.1, which spread at-risk students most evenly among the elementary schools and reassigned about 1,045 children. Most came from the two schools nearest Northside, including crowded Seawell Elementary, and the whole Section 74A area north of town was moved.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Northside School

A new Northside Elementary opened on the old Training School grounds

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opened a new Northside Elementary on the former Orange County Training School site. In 2012 neighbors had rallied to make sure the new school kept the Northside name.

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Northside School

Ethel Fuller Neville dies at 99 in the stone house on Cobb Street

Ethel Fuller Neville, widowed in 1960, lived at 107 Cobb Street until her death in 2013 at 99. Her five children all took part in the local civil rights movement, and son Calvin became a stonemason trained by the Campbells. The house stood mostly empty afterward.

Subject: Jeter and Ethel Neville House

Neighbors form the Rogers Road Community Unity Board

The Community Unity Board brought together leaders from every sub-neighborhood of Rogers-Eubanks, among them Historic Rogers Road, Billabong, TallyHo, Meadow Run, Phoenix Place and Sandberg, for continuing talks about the area's future. RENA and the Jackson Center reconvened it in 2015 for the planning work the three governments had asked for.

Part of Rogers Road environmental justice · 54 events

People: Robert Campbell

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association · Marian Cheek Jackson Center

Walter Horton becomes Carrboro's first African American police chief

Town Manager David Andrews named Captain Walter Horton, a Carrboro native who joined the department in 1993, to succeed retiring Chief Carolyn Hutchison. Horton led the department until he retired in early 2021.

William J. Barber II speaks at a rally at Silent Sam on its 100th anniversary

On the Confederate monument's 100th anniversary, William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, spoke at a rally at its foot organized by the Real Silent Sam Committee, saying the statue had never been silent.

Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

EPA accepted RENA's civil rights complaint over water and sewer service for investigation

The EPA Office of Civil Rights took up the question whether the Orange County Planning and Inspections Department had intentionally discriminated on the basis of race by denying water and sewer service to the African American residents of Rogers Road. RENA had filed the complaint with the U.S. Justice Department, which referred it to several federal agencies, and it was joined to an earlier complaint against OWASA accepted on November 23, 2009.

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

The county-funded Rogers Road Community Center opened at 101 Edgar Street

Orange County commissioners awarded a $522,488 contract to Riggs-Harrod Builders of Durham on April 1, 2014 after a first round of bids came in at two to three times the authorized budget and the building was redesigned. The larger center, with a community room, kitchen, computer lab and outdoor courts, opened that December a short walk from RENA's 2010 building.

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

Hillsborough votes to remove "Confederate Memorial" lettering from the former library

The 1934 public library building on North Churton Street, home of the Orange County Historical Museum since 1983, still carried part of its "Confederate Memorial Library 1934" sign. After museum leaders asked in June 2015 to take the words down, saying some Black residents felt unwelcome, the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners voted that year to remove the sign from the pediment.

Subject: Orange County Public Library · Orange County Historical Museum

UNC, Self-Help, the Jackson Center and the town launch the Northside neighborhood initiative

UNC-Chapel Hill committed a $3 million, 10-year, no-interest loan to Self-Help to buy Northside homes as they came on the market and hold them in a land bank for affordable resale or rental. The Jackson Center and the Town of Chapel Hill were partners.

People: Mark Kleinschmidt · Carol L. Folt

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

Bill Thorpe and Dean Smith are added to the Peace and Justice Plaza marker

At a town Peace and Justice Celebration, the names of former Council member Bill Thorpe and UNC basketball coach Dean Smith were added to the granite marker, which already honored 13 local leaders. Thorpe's son William spoke about him.

People: Dean Smith · Mark Kleinschmidt

Subject: Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza

Joal Broun is sworn in to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board

The district said Broun, a former Carrboro alderman then directing the state's lobbying compliance division, was sworn in to fill the seat left by Michelle Brownstein's resignation. She had also served on the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board and the Orange County Dispute Settlement Center.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

RENA and the Jackson Center published the Rogers Road community plan commissioned by the three governments

In July 2015 Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro asked the Marian Cheek Jackson Center and RENA to run a community-first planning process as sewer design advanced. The resulting report, built from nine Unity Board sessions and two rounds of interviews, set four priorities for the neighborhood and became the reference document for the later zoning districts and Greene Tract resolutions.

Part of Historic Rogers Road neighborhood · 25 events

People: Robert Campbell · David Caldwell Jr.

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association · Marian Cheek Jackson Center

UNC names scholarships for its first Black undergraduates and other "firsts"

At University Day, UNC named existing grants and fellowships for 21 people who were firsts in its history, among them John L. Brandon, Ralph K. Frasier and LeRoy B. Frasier Jr., its first Black undergraduates.

People: John Lewis Brandon · Ralph Frasier · Carol L. Folt

Orange County voters approve a $5 million affordable housing bond

More than 65 percent of voters approved $5 million in bonds for affordable housing, alongside a $120 million school bond that passed with 75.5 percent.

Mildred Council receives EmPOWERment's first POWER award

At a gala at the Friday Center, basketball coach Roy Williams presented Mildred "Mama Dip" Council with the inaugural POWER award from EmPOWERment Inc., a group promoting affordable housing and economic development in Chapel Hill's neediest neighborhoods. The honor came in the month of her restaurant's 40th anniversary.

People: Roy Williams

A stone gateway honoring Northside's freedom fighters was opened at Rosemary and Roberson streets

The gateway of Chatham stone carries eight black granite slabs with civil rights images and quotations from oral history interviews. It was opened with a ribbon cutting at the first Northside Festival, as the Jackson Center renamed its annual celebration.

People: Hilliard Caldwell

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

Barbara Foushee receives the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP's Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award

The branch gave Foushee its Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Service Award for work promoting diversity and social justice. She was then the branch's secretary.

William J. Barber II gives the Weil Lecture on American Citizenship

William J. Barber II delivered UNC's 2017 Weil Lecture on American Citizenship in Moeser Auditorium, Hill Hall, speaking on the morality of citizenship.

Subject: Hill Hall

The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls at Efland joins the Study List

Orange County submitted the Study List application for the former Efland home with the owner's knowledge, and the committee approved it with the other central region requests on February 9, 2017. A member asked whether the grounds had been assessed for archaeology; none had.

Subject: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home)

Ground was broken on the sewer extension to the historic Rogers Road area

Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, OWASA and RENA held a groundbreaking at the RENA Community Center on Edgar Street after the sanitary sewer design was finished and a contractor hired. Construction was to begin in July 2017 and run 10 to 12 months.

People: Robert Campbell

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

UNC's Noteworthy Firsts program honors Karen Parker

At a reception in Kenan Stadium, UNC honored Parker among 21 people whose names were given to need-based undergraduate awards and graduate fellowships in its Noteworthy Firsts initiative, begun by Chancellor Carol Folt in 2016.

People: Carol L. Folt

Subject: Kenan Stadium

Barbara Foushee is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

Foushee, who announced her candidacy in March 2017 saying she wanted a seat at the table where changes were made, won a seat in the 2017 municipal election. She served on the town's governing board for six years before being elected mayor.

Part of Carrboro’s Black political firsts · 12 events

Burwell School Historic Site marks the bicentennial of Elizabeth Keckly

Through 2018 the Burwell School Historic Site in Hillsborough marked the 200th anniversary of Keckly's birth with an exhibition that included an original copy of her memoir and a replica of a purple velvet dress she made, sewn by local seamstress Karen DeSombre.

Subject: Burwell School

Carrboro broke ground on the Rogers Road sidewalk and bus stop project

A $1.37 million project put a five-foot sidewalk from the west side of Rogers Road to Meadow Run Court, together with a new bus pad and shelter. Ground was broken in late June 2018 and construction began that fall. The project traced back to a New Horizons task force created in 2005.

The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls is listed in the National Register

On January 25, 2018 the National Park Service listed the North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls near Efland in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home)

University Archives publishes the names of 119 enslaved people who built and worked at the university

Drawing on research by archivists, historians and students in Jim Leloudis's fall 2017 History 398 class, the archives listed 119 enslaved people who built and labored at the university from 1795 to 1865, including November Caldwell and David Barham.

Chapel Hill residents walk and sing in memory of Mama Dip

The day before Mildred Council's funeral at Chapel Hill Bible Church, William Thorpe of UNC Walk For Health led a walk through Chapel Hill in her memory, with people singing "This Little Light of Mine" from porches along the way.

Danita Mason-Hogans presents Chapel Hill's civil rights timeline to the town council

The Historic Civil Rights Commemorations Task Force, created by Mayor Pam Hemminger in the fall of 2017, gave the council a timeline of people, places and events in the town's civil rights struggle. Mason-Hogans, one of its leaders, told the council that who tells the history matters as much as the history itself.

Carrboro created a zoning overlay district to protect the Lloyd-Broad neighborhood

At residents' request the Board of Aldermen set square-footage and parking limits and a cap of four unrelated occupants per household for the historically African American neighborhood, which had seen more student rentals and larger replacement houses. New building had to comply at once and existing houses were given three years.

People: Lydia Lavelle

The UNC Board of Governors gives Chapel Hill until November 15 to propose a 'lawful and lasting' plan for the monument

Eight days after the toppling, the Board of Governors met for nearly two hours in closed session and adopted a resolution directing Chancellor Folt and the trustees to present by November 15 a plan offering 'a lawful and lasting path that protects public safety, preserves the monument and its history'. Thom Goolsby cast the lone no vote, and the board ordered an outside review of the University's handling of the August 20 protest. The trustees met the same day.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

William J. Barber II is named a MacArthur Fellow

The MacArthur Foundation named William J. Barber II, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, a 2018 MacArthur Fellow.

Chapel Hill voters approve a $10 million affordable housing bond

About 72 percent of voters approved $10 million in general obligation bonds toward the town's goal of 400 new and 300 preserved affordable units over five years, including public housing redevelopment.

Self-Help buys the Neville House for the Northside land bank

On November 8, 2018, Self-Help Ventures Fund bought the vacant Neville House through the Northside Neighborhood Initiative land bank, which uses a $3 million no-interest UNC loan to keep homes in Northside, Tin Top and Pine Knolls from becoming student rentals.

Subject: Jeter and Ethel Neville House

Chapel Hill's council accepts the task force plan for a Chapel Hill Nine marker

The council voted unanimously to accept the recommendations for a marker in front of 450 West Franklin Street, where Colonial Drug stood, and sent the plans to the town manager. Mason-Hogans, a task force member, said the marker and the learning around it mattered for young people.

UNC trustees vote to house the monument in a new $5.3 million University History and Education Center

At a special meeting the Board of Trustees approved a four-part plan for the Board of Governors: relocate the statue and tablets into a new free-standing building at the former Odum Village site on south campus, add a McCorkle Place gateway with plaques, and continue contextualizing campus history. The center was priced at $5.3 million with $800,000 a year to operate; Folt said police advised that the statue could not safely return to McCorkle Place.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument) · McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

The Board of Governors rejects the history center and appoints a task force with a March 15 deadline

After a nearly three-hour closed session the Board of Governors declined the trustees' $5.3 million history center, citing cost and public safety, and named five of its members to work with Folt and the trustees on a new proposal by March 15, 2019. Folt said the plan 'hasn't satisfied anyone' and that the campus would now look at off-campus options.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

People: Margaret Spellings

Hillsborough holds a celebration of Billy Strayhorn

A day of events called A Celebration of Billy Strayhorn began at the historical marker on South Churton Street and ran on at the Orange County Main Library and the Burwell School Historic Site. Mayor Tom Stevens, the musician Yahyah Corbett, the choreographer David Rousseve, the Duke professor Thomas DeFrantz and the puppeteer Jeghetto took part.

Subject: Burwell School · Orange County Public Library

The Chapel Hill Nine marker site is dedicated on the 59th anniversary of the sit-in

The town dedicated the marker site at 5 p.m. in front of the West End Wine Bar, where Colonial Drug had stood, and a march to First Baptist Church followed for a community celebration. Mason-Hogans, a main proponent of the marker, spoke about the task force's work.

Subject: First Baptist Church, Chapel Hill

Joal Broun is elected chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board

The board elected Broun chair by unanimous vote after chair Margaret Samuels resigned during a recall push over the Glenwood Elementary dual language magnet decision. Mary Ann Wolf took the vice chair seat Broun had held.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Chapel Hill and Carrboro created Historic Rogers Road zoning districts

The Chapel Hill Town Council closed its public hearing on May 22, 2019 and enacted Land Use Management Ordinance amendments establishing new zoning districts for the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood. Carrboro added Section 15-136.1 to its Land Use Ordinance on June 18, 2019, creating the HR-R and HR-CC districts expressly to carry out the Mapping Our Community's Future plan.

The Rogers Road sewer extension was placed in service

OWASA put the extension into service on June 27, 2019 after the state accepted the as-built certification, ending a wait that residents traced to the 1972 landfill agreement. About 3.5 miles of sewer had been laid, and the neighborhood held a celebration at the community center on June 3. Individual owners still had to pay to connect their homes.

People: Penny Rich

A mural for Billy Strayhorn is painted on South Churton Street

Max Dowdle painted an eleven by thirty five foot mural called Take the A Train on the side of 226 South Churton Street, the building that houses the record store and bar Volume. Volume's owner Tony Lopez proposed it, the Tourism Development Authority paid for it, and the Arts Council and the Historic District Commission approved it.

EPA closed the Rogers Road civil rights complaint as moot

The EPA External Civil Rights Compliance Office told the Orange County attorney that Complaint No. 13R-07-R4 was closed because interlocal agreements to which the county was a party had produced a completed water and sewer extension, and because OWASA is bound by those agreements to serve Rogers Road residents who connect. The letter found no systemic issues left to investigate and made no finding of discrimination.

The UNC System gives Silent Sam to the Sons of Confederate Veterans with a $2.5 million trust in a same-day consent judgment

The North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the UNC System and Board of Governors over the monument and a consent judgment was entered the same day in Orange County Superior Court. The System handed over the statue, to be kept outside the fourteen counties with a System campus, and endowed a $2.5 million charitable trust from non-state funds for its care and display. Board chair Randy Ramsey said the deal let the University 'move forward'.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

The Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition collects soil at the site of Manly McCauley's lynching

On a Saturday morning on Carl Drive, McCauley family members, clergy and coalition members gathered at the spot where he is believed to have been hanged; elders of Hickory Grove Missionary Baptist Church blessed soil that was jarred for the family. A program with the Equal Justice Initiative followed at the church.

Part of Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County · 17 events

People: James Williams

Judge Allen Baddour voids the Silent Sam settlement in Hillsborough for lack of standing

At a hearing in Hillsborough, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ruled that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had no standing to bring the suit and set aside the consent judgment and the $2.5 million trust. Five UNC students and a faculty member represented by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law had sought to intervene; their motion was denied but the judge took up the standing question they raised.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

Subject: Silent Sam (UNC Confederate monument)

The Town of Chapel Hill unveils the Chapel Hill Nine marker at the Colonial Drug site

On the sixtieth anniversary of the sit-in the town dedicated sculptor Stephen Hayes's stone-based marker at 450 West Franklin Street, naming the nine students; four of them, Dave Mason Jr., James Merritt, Douglas Perry and Albert Williams, attended the unveiling.

Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 35 events

People: David Mason Jr. · James Merritt · Douglas Perry · Albert Williams

Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz formally charges the Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward

The commission, formed in 2019 and co-chaired by Jim Leloudis and Patricia Parker, was charged with researching the university's history with race and recommending how to reckon with it.

People: Kevin M. Guskiewicz

Exhibit honoring housekeeping and facilities staff opens in the renovated Cheek-Clark Building

A lobby exhibit in the renovated Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark Building presents the lives of Cheek, Clark and groundskeeper William Hubbard with a timeline of the university's housekeeping and facilities work.

People: Rebecca Clark · Kennon Cheek

Cedar Grove School is listed in the National Register

On April 23, 2020 the National Park Service listed Cedar Grove School near Cedar Grove in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

UNC School of Law dedicates a portrait of Charles E. Daye

The law school held a virtual dedication for a commissioned portrait of Professor Emeritus Charles E. Daye by the Durham artist William Paul Thomas, attended by close to 300 people. The portrait hangs on the fifth floor of Van Hecke-Wettach Hall.

Subject: UNC School of Law

African, African American, and Diaspora Studies faculty ask the university to take Battle's name off Battle Hall

Faculty of the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies, whose offices are in Battle Hall, petitioned to remove Kemp Plummer Battle's name, citing his enslaving of people, his support for secession and his promotion of white supremacy. The university's Commission on History, Race, and a Way Forward endorsed the request.

Family and community march to remember James Cates on the 50th anniversary

A candlelit march went from Hargraves Community Center to St. Joseph CME Church and down Franklin Street to Peace and Justice Plaza, where the Town of Chapel Hill invited residents to leave flowers and messages for the Cates family. Mayor Pam Hemminger pledged to work with the family and UNC to investigate the killing.

People: Danita Mason-Hogans

Subject: Hargraves Community Center

Community Home Trust marks 30 years with 332 permanently affordable homes

At its 30th anniversary the Home Trust held 332 permanently affordable homes in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, up from about 100 in 2005.

James Cates Remembrance Coalition proposes naming Student Stores for Cates

A coalition of Cates's family, historian Danita Mason-Hogans and community members proposed renaming UNC's Student Stores building in his honor. The building had not been renamed as of 2024.

People: Nate Davis · Valerie Foushee · Danita Mason-Hogans

Sartin School, a 1930s school for Black children, is taken apart and removed

The frame Sartin School, built as a one-room school by R. J. Forrest in 1932 and given a second room in 1935, was dismantled and carried off its site in 2021, leaving Ridge Road among the very few such schools still standing in the county.

Hillsborough renames Thomas Ruffin Street as Lydia Lane

The Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to rename the street for Lydia, the enslaved woman shot by John Mann in the case Thomas Ruffin decided. All twelve households on the street had petitioned for a new name and had first proposed Hope Lane; Commissioner Mark Bell suggested using Lydia's name, and Commissioner Kathleen Ferguson made the motion to approve.

People: Thomas Ruffin

Gaps in vaccination among Black and Hispanic residents reported

Chapelboro reported that Black residents were 12.4 percent of Orange County's population but 9 percent of those vaccinated, and Hispanic residents 8.6 percent and 5.5 percent. The county was working with church leaders and advocates in a Human Services Consulting Group and had held clinics at the Hargraves Community Center and in Cedar Grove.

Subject: Hargraves Community Center

The three governments adopted an interlocal agreement on the future of the Greene Tract

The agreement required Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro to act jointly in hiring consultants, entering development agreements and taking public input, put the mayors, chair and managers in a working group to negotiate the ultimate uses, and stated an initial intent covering mixed use and affordable housing, a school site with recreation, a joint preserve and connectivity. A November 2021 resolution then approved the recombination plat and the conceptual plan for the 60-acre county tract and the 107-acre joint tract.

Governor Cooper appoints Joal Broun a district court judge for Orange and Chatham counties

Broun was appointed to the District 15B seat vacated by Judge Beverly Scarlett. She was then director of the lobbying compliance division at the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State.

People: Beverly Scarlett

Joal Broun is sworn in as a district court judge

Secretary of State Elaine Marshall administered the oath to Broun, who left her post as the department's lobbying compliance division director and gave up her school board seat to take the judgeship.

Carrboro unveils a truth plaque naming Green Cordal and Benjamin Craig

The Town of Carrboro unveiled its second truth plaque at the former freedmen's school site on North Merritt Mill Road, next to St. Paul AME Church. The text reads that Green Cordal and Benjamin Craig, freed from bondage, purchased this land for a Freedman School and church, and that with funds from the Society of Friends they built a schoolhouse that served hundreds of free Black children and adults.

People: Benjamin Craig · Jacquelyn Gist

Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board honors Stanley Vickers and his family on the 60th anniversary of his court victory

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board passed a resolution recognizing the Vickers family's work to integrate the schools. Vickers, then in his 70s, attended and recalled eating lunch and going to gym alone as one of the first Black students at the junior high.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

The history and race commission holds a public webinar on the Unsung Founders Memorial

The Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward opened a two-part webinar series, Unsung Founders Memorial: Past and Present, with members of the Class of 2002 committee and statements from artist Do Ho Suh.

People: Do-Ho Suh

Chapel Hill Public Library webinar marks the 51st anniversary of the Cates killing

The Chapel Hill Public Library hosted a webinar in which family and friends, including state Senator Valerie Foushee, a first cousin of Cates, reflected on his life and on the failures that followed his death.

People: Valerie Foushee

Subject: Chapel Hill Public Library

UNC renames Aycock Residence Hall for Hortense McClinton

On the chancellor's recommendation the trustees voted to put McClinton's name on the residence hall that had carried Governor Charles B. Aycock's name until it was removed in July 2020. The Carr Building became the Henry Owl Building the same day.

People: Kevin M. Guskiewicz · Charles B. Aycock

Subject: Carr Building (Henry Owl Building)

Census counts 36 migrant workers on Orange County farms

The 2022 Census of Agriculture found 174 Orange County farms employing 597 hired workers, including 36 migrant workers on seven farms. Between 2017 and 2022 the number of tobacco farms in the county fell by 60 percent.

Northside land bank passes 41 properties

By mid-2022 the initiative had bought more than 41 Northside properties with the UNC loan, and 51 families with 50 children had moved into the neighborhood through its housing work.

Self-Help begins rehabilitating the Neville House for sale to a homeowner

In 2022 Self-Help began a full rehabilitation of the Neville House, to be sold with a deed restriction keeping it owner-occupied. Code work meant gutting the interior, and the stone mantel, the one original inside piece of the masons' work, was lost when the fireplace was removed.

Subject: Jeter and Ethel Neville House

Justice Department opens a cold-case investigation into the Cates killing

The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the killing under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act and its cold-case initiative for racially motivated killings before 1980. Cates's cousins Nate Davis and Valerie Foushee welcomed the review.

People: Nate Davis · Valerie Foushee

Danita Mason-Hogans receives a national fellowship for a critical oral history of Chapel Hill and UNC

The Oral History Association named her one of eleven year-long fellows funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. Her project is a critical oral history of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina.

Hortense McClinton Residence Hall is dedicated

UNC dedicated Hortense McClinton Residence Hall and the Henry Owl Building in a ceremony, and the School of Social Work held a dinner for McClinton, then 103, that launched a legacy scholarship in her name.

Subject: Carr Building (Henry Owl Building)

UNC announces a permanent memorial to James Cates in the Pit

Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz announced that a permanent memorial to Cates would be installed in the Pit later in 2022, developed with students, faculty, staff and the Cates family, approved by the Board of Trustees and supported by the Town of Chapel Hill.

People: Kevin M. Guskiewicz

Chapel Hill names the Hargraves Center gym for Nate Davis

The Town Council unanimously approved naming the Northside Gym at the Hargraves Community Center for Davis, the center's director for more than three decades, and its indoor court for Fred Battle, director from 1970 to 1987.

People: Fred Battle

Subject: Hargraves Community Center

UNC dedicates the James L. Cates Jr. Memorial in the Pit

On the 52nd anniversary of his death, UNC dedicated a black lectern-style marker near the spot where Cates was stabbed, with an inscription from the University and the Town of Chapel Hill. Speakers included Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Congresswoman-elect Valerie Foushee for the family, student body president Taliajah Vann and BSM president Julia Clark.

People: Valerie Foushee · Kevin M. Guskiewicz

Soil collection ceremony at the Orange County courthouse honors Cyrus Guy and four other 1869 lynching victims

The Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition held a soil collection ceremony for Washington Morrow, Wright Malone, Daniel Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow and Cyrus Guy, all lynched in 1869. One jar for each man was to go to the Equal Justice Initiative's memorial collection in Montgomery, Alabama, and a second jar was to stay in Orange County.

People: Daniel Morrow · Jefferson Morrow · Washington Morrow · Wright Malone · James Williams

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The Jeter and Ethel Neville House is listed in the National Register

On August 1, 2023 the National Park Service listed the Jeter and Ethel Neville House in Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Jeter and Ethel Neville House

EMPOWERment broke ground on PEACH apartments at the former Pine Knolls Community Center

The nonprofit began building 10 debt-free apartments for households earning 30 percent or less of area median income at 107 Johnson Street, where Ted Parrish had run the independent Pine Knolls Community Center. It had raised $3.5 million for the project.

Part of Preserving affordable housing · 30 events

Barbara Foushee is sworn in as Carrboro's first Black woman mayor

Barbara Foushee, a council member since 2017, won the November 2023 mayoral election unopposed and took office as the first Black woman mayor of Carrboro and its second Black mayor after Robert Drakeford. She was re-elected in November 2025.

People: Barbara Foushee

Ridge Road School is listed in the National Register

On December 12, 2023 the National Park Service listed Ridge Road School near Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Ridge Road School

Chapel Hill breaks ground on the Trinity Court redevelopment

Trinity Court, 40 public housing units built in 1975 and vacated in 2018 for structural problems, is being rebuilt with Community Housing Partners as 54 affordable apartments after an April 2022 rezoning and an October 2022 tax credit award. Leasing began in winter 2026.

Student groups hold a memorial for James Cates in the Pit

The Southern Student Action Coalition, the Black Student Movement, the Community Justice, Abolition and Anti-Racism Collective and the UNC NAACP held a memorial at the Pit, where speakers criticized the wording and placement of the 2022 plaque.

People: Danita Mason-Hogans

William J. Barber II gives the Bobby Boyd Leadership Lecture at UNC

William J. Barber II spoke on poverty and inequality at the UNC School of Social Work's Bobby Boyd Leadership Lecture in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building to nearly 300 people, with about 750 more online.

Chuck Stone receives a posthumous Pulitzer Prize special citation

The Pulitzer Prize Board gave Stone, the former Walter Spearman Professor of journalism at UNC, a special citation for his civil rights reporting, his work as the first Black columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News and his part in founding the National Association of Black Journalists.

Hilliard Caldwell dies at 88

Caldwell, who advised the Lincoln High School students who held Chapel Hill's first sit-in in 1960 and later served on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, died on September 6, 2025. The town issued a statement remembering his service and courage.

People: Barbara Foushee

Students and residents mark 55 years since the killing of James Cates

The Carolina NAACP chapter and the Black Student Movement held a remembrance for Cates on campus, and student leaders again called the 2022 plaque's passive wording inadequate.

Penny Rich runs for Orange County register of deeds

Rich, by then an assistant clerk of superior court, entered the 2026 Democratic primary for Orange County register of deeds. She campaigned on modernizing the office's technology and public website and on heir property issues affecting African American families.

The Burwell School is renamed the Elizabeth Keckly Center at the Burwell School

The Burwell School Historic Site in Hillsborough took the name the Elizabeth Keckly Center at the Burwell School in late August 2026, honoring the woman the Burwells held in slavery in the house from 1835. Site director Elizabeth Hays said the aim was to hold the site's histories together.

Subject: Burwell School

UNC says a new residence hall will be named Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson

UNC-Chapel Hill announced that one of two new residence halls, to be built on the site of the former Jackson Hall that housed undergraduate admissions, will be named Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson. The two halls will add about 730 beds.

People: Blyden Jackson