Chronology

Search and filters

Entries

1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. 1858
   Chapel Hill John W. Graham joins the university faculty as a Latin tutor

   A year after taking his A.B. in 1857, John W. Graham became a tutor in Latin at the University of North Carolina. He finished a law degree there in 1860.

3. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

4. 1876-1928
   Chapel Hill John W. Graham serves on the university board of trustees

   John W. Graham sat on the University of North Carolina board of trustees from 1876 until his death in 1928, and from 1891 he was an elected member of its executive committee.

5. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

6. June 11, 1928
   Graham Residence Hall, Chapel Hill The trustees name a Lower Quad dormitory Graham Residence Hall for John W. Graham

   Meeting shortly after his death, the university trustees named the dormitory finished in 1924 on the Lower Quad for John Washington Graham, class of 1857 and a trustee since 1876. They praised his service at the 1864 Battle of Plymouth, where Confederate troops massacred Black soldiers and people who had fled slavery.

7. Recent decades · 1976–2026

8. February 2020
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill 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.

9. October 12, 2020
   Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill 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.

10. October 18, 2021
    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill 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.

Suggest a correction to an entry →

A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.