The full story
A Black Cultural Center Planning Committee of Black Student Movement members, administrators and faculty, formed with the help of Vice Chancellor Donald Boulton, held its first meeting in the Carolina Union on April 19, 1984. The BSM sought the Union's vacant Fastbreak area for the center, and when the Union chose by September 1985 to make it a lounge and programming area, BSM President Sibby Anderson said the center was being offered 'a little corner.' Associate Dean Hayden B. Renwick said the plan had shrunk since Boulton outlined it two years earlier. On October 4 the 14-member steering committee formed a subcommittee to look for a site on campus and approved a job description for a director; member Sonja H. Stone, an associate professor of Afro-American studies, said the draft would not be released.
That fall, in a remodeling of the Union, the first-floor vending machines were moved into the old Fastbreak area to reserve their space for the center. In December Boulton said his office had set aside about 1,500 square feet there and start-up money for a director, a secretary and supplies, should the committee's proposal call for a center; Anderson and other members doubted the commitment, since their draft described a much larger center. On January 24, 1986, after about 21 months of work, the committee met to finish its proposal for a permanent center for the study and preservation of Black culture, with a library, performing arts space and room for resident artists, and it sent the proposal to Boulton on February 7. On April 22 Boulton told committee members the center would take about 1,500 square feet at the south end of the Union's first floor, with $13,000 for renovation and a three-year Student Affairs commitment to pay a director and a secretary. A BSM president later wrote that the plan for a building of about $750,000 had shrunk to a small lounge in the student union.
On January 21, 1987 the planning committee approved a floor plan for the center across from the Union's TV lounge. Its consultant, William Jones of Florida State University, warned that without support from the wider administration the University's response could be seen as trivializing the proposal. In October the committee began a national search for a director, and on October 28 about 60 students gathered in the space for the center's pre-opening, where Stone spoke on Black students as heirs to and founders of Afro-American culture. By March 1988 the University had spent $25,000 to furnish the center, Boulton told BSM president Kenneth Perry.
In April UNC named Margo Crawford of Chicago, chosen from 60 applicants by a search committee under associate vice chancellor Edith Wiggins, the center's first director; she said trustees chairman Bob Eubanks wanted it to become the leading collegiate center in the nation. On July 1, 1988 the Black Cultural Center became a department in the Division of Student Affairs and Crawford took office, with $73,000 budgeted for its first year in the temporary Union space. On October 24 Duke professor of religion C. Eric Lincoln opened its Monday Night Black Culture Lecture Series before about 200 people in Memorial Hall. On October 27 the Department of Athletics gave the center $15,000, and athletic director John Swofford said it shared the department's goal of better racial understanding. On November 20, Pauli Murray's birthday, the center held a tribute to her at the Chapel of the Cross, where Floyd McKissick was among the speakers. By early 1989 it was running several programs a month and publishing a newsletter, Word.
The Black Student Movement pressed for a permanent building and a lasting budget. Fearing the Union space would become permanent, it resolved under Perry on October 5, 1988 that the University should choose a permanent site by January 31, 1989 and begin construction by January 31, 1990. On October 27 trustee John Pope questioned the need for the center at a trustees' committee meeting after Crawford's presentation, suggesting that students who wanted such a center might attend a Black university. On November 9 the Facilities Planning Committee endorsed the BSM's proposal for a permanent center of up to 13,000 square feet, larger than the 8,548 square feet sought in February 1986, as a focal point for Black cultural expression, a tool for recruiting and keeping minority students and a link to the surrounding community. On November 30 BSM members voted not to ask for interim space, fearing a larger temporary site could stand in for a permanent one. On December 9 the trustees voted 11 to 0 to recognize the center's successful beginning and encouraged its planning committee to plan adequate space; Black Ink reported that Pope left the meeting before the vote.
In the fall of 1989 delegates from the center decided to form a UNC Collegiate Black Caucus, open to students of any race, after 13 UNC students attended the Congressional Black Caucus weekend in Washington. In November the planning committee released a feasibility study for a permanent 23,000-square-foot center with an art gallery, library and media room at a projected cost of about $3 million, weighing a renovation of Howell Hall, an expansion of the Union or a freestanding center.
Reading on the places and people in this storyline
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Don't believe the hype : the misrepresentation of the facts by the media concerning the construction of the Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone free-standing BCC
Merritt, David · 1994
David Merritt's 1994 production argues that press coverage misrepresented the facts of the campaign for a free standing Black Cultural Center named for Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It runs about 52 minutes and is accompanied by a text of sixteen leaves with five preliminary pages. Topics include African American students at the university and race relations.
Icons of Power and Landscapes of Protest
Roseboro, Donyell L. · 2005
Donyell L. Roseboro's 2005 doctoral dissertation on the student movement for the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It examines African American student activism and student organizations on the Chapel Hill campus. A typescript of 307 leaves with illustrations, distributed through UMI.
The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History : the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Office of University Development · 2003 · Office of University Development
A promotional sheet on the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, issued in 2003 by the Office of University Development at Chapel Hill. One folded sheet of three unnumbered pages with illustrations, 28 by 44 centimeters. Topics include the center itself and the buildings of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center.
1993
A 1993 report on the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center at Chapel Hill, based on the deliberations of the Black Cultural Center Working Group and the center's advisory board, with the endorsement of the working group alone. Twenty three pages and twelve unnumbered leaves, including a folded map. Topics include African American college students in Chapel Hill and university buildings.
The Church of the Atonement and the Chapel of the Cross at Chapel Hill
Henderson, Archibald · 1938
Archibald Henderson's history of the Episcopal congregation in Chapel Hill, the Church of the Atonement and the Chapel of the Cross, as the title names them. A short work of Chapel Hill church history and of the Episcopal Church in North Carolina, published in Hartford, Connecticut, by the Church Missions Publishing Company in 1938, 57 pages with illustrations and portraits. One copy carries the author's presentation inscription to the North Carolina State Library.
The first parish register of the Chapel of the Cross (1842-1881)
2024 · Chapel Hill Historical Society
Transcription of the first register kept by Chapel of the Cross, the Episcopal parish on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, with its entries from 1842 to 1881. Published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 2024 with an introduction and a bibliography, 142 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Chapel of the Cross : calendar 1996.
1996 · Chapel of the Cross
Wall calendar for 1996 made by two Chapel of the Cross choristers, Jane Hamborsky and Margaret Middleton, who photographed architectural details of the Gothic Revival church in Chapel Hill. Thomas U. Walter designed the chapel, which went up from 1843 to 1848. Black-and-white photographs, from the Images of North Carolina collection.
The word of love : preaching in the ministry of Stephen Elkins-Williams
Elkins-Williams, Stephen, 1944- · 2015 · iUniverse
Sermons preached by Stephen Elkins-Williams during his ministry at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, collected in 329 pages and published by iUniverse in 2015. Bishop Michael B. Curry and the Reverend Tambria Elizabeth Lee contributed forewords. Illustrations accompany the text.
Milestones : the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History grand opening celebration, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill : August 20-23, 2004.
Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History · 2004 · UNC, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History
Four days of events, from 20 to 23 August 2004, marked the grand opening of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at Chapel Hill, and this twenty six page illustrated program lays them out. The center issued it.
Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History records, 1984-2013.
Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History · 1984
Organizational records of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, 1984 to 2013, roughly 10,500 items across 12.5 linear feet in the University Archives at UNC, collection 40341. Topics include African American students at Chapel Hill, race relations at the university, student movements, the building itself, and Sonja Haynes Stone (1938-1991), for whom the center is named.
Business as usual at North Carolina.
Madzimoyo, Wekesa Olatunji · 1980 · Council on Learning
An article by Wekesa Olatunji Madzimoyo on race relations and African American students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed in Change for January 1980 and separately issued by the Council on Learning. It follows an earlier piece by Randall Williams on the same campus. Sonja Haynes Stone is among the people discussed. Nine pages.
Southeastern Black Press Institute Records, 1976-1979
Southeastern Black Press Institute · 1976
The Southeastern Black Press Institute is documented here by about 200 items in one linear foot covering 1976 to 1979, in the University Archives at UNC, collection 40502. Topics include the African American press in the 20th century, the study and teaching of journalism, the curricula of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Sonja Haynes Stone, 1938 to 1991. In English.
Oral history interview with Daniel H. Pollitt, March 21-22, 1991: interview L-0064-6, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Pollitt, Daniel H. · 2008 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Sixth Pollitt interview, recorded March 21 and 22, 1991, by Ann McColl, about an hour long. Its single subject is the 1969 strike by food service workers at UNC, which Pollitt supported. He sets the strike in its local and national context, the labor and civil rights currents of the late 1960s, then follows how it unfolded among the workers, their union backers, the faculty and the university administration. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
I raised my hand to volunteer: students protest in 1960s Chapel Hill : an exhibit of the Manuscripts Department in the Wilson Library
Hollingsworth, Biff · 2007
Catalog of an exhibit mounted by the Manuscripts Department of Wilson Library from January 23 to May 31, 2007, on student protest in Chapel Hill during the 1960s. Topics include civil rights demonstrations, the Speaker Ban Law, the Black Student Movement, restaurant strikes and Vietnam War protests at the university. Compiled by Biff Hollingsworth, 59 pages with illustrations and facsimiles, published by the university library.
Oral history interview with Ashley Davis, April 12, 1974: interview E-0062, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Davis, Ashley · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Ashley Davis, who entered UNC in 1968 and joined the Black Student Movement, recalls the 1969 strike by the university's cafeteria workers and the BSM's decision to stand with them when the workers asked. Recorded April 12, 1974, by Russell Rymer for the Southern Oral History Program, the hour-and-a-half interview touches on Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the Southern Student Organizing Committee and race relations among students on campus. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Brooks, October 2, 1974: interview E-0058, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Brooks, Elizabeth · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Elizabeth Brooks, a cafeteria worker at UNC and a leader of the 1969 food workers' strike, speaks in a Southern Oral History Program interview recorded October 2, 1974, by Beverly Jones. Born in Caswell County, Brooks had made her home in Hillsborough since 1949 and raised nine children before her first paid job, at the university. She describes the strike, the Black Student Movement's support for the workers, and the response of Governor Robert W. Scott. Published online in 2006 in Documenting the American South.
It Wasn't Slavery Time Anymore: Foodworkers' Strike at Chapel Hill, Spring 1969
Williams, J. Derek · 1979
J. Derek Williams's 1979 study of the 1969 strike by cafeteria workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, examining a chapter in the university's labor and Black history. A typescript of 270 leaves with a bibliography.
Progress and protests : UNC-Chapel Hill leaders during "the Long Sixties" (1957-1972) : covering chancellors William Brantley Aycock, Paul F. Sharp, and J. Carlyle Sitterson
Roundtree, Lynn · 2024 · Lynn Roundtree
Lynn Roundtree covers the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill between 1957 and 1972 through its three chancellors, William Brantley Aycock, Paul F. Sharp and J. Carlyle Sitterson, set against the student movements of those years. Part of the Coates university leadership series, published by the author in 2024 and running to 926 pages. It is twentieth century campus history.
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Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film : our diaspora : where every life is an epic story
Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film (2017 : Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History) · 2017 · UNC, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History
Program calendar for the 2017 Diaspora Festival of Black and Independent Film, presented in the fall by the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History at Chapel Hill and tied to the campus Arts Everywhere initiative. Topics include film festivals in Chapel Hill and Black people in the motion picture industry, so the leaflet records what the festival screened that season.
BSM 40th movie
Sykes, D. (Derek) · 2007
Derek Sykes's film marking the fortieth anniversary of the Black Student Movement at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, made in 2007 and first issued in electronic form. Topics include African American student movements and African American students, so the piece records four decades of Black student organizing on the Chapel Hill campus.
I raised my hand to volunteer : students protest in 1960s Chapel Hill.
2007 · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Account of student protest in 1960s Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007 with illustrations. It draws together the civil rights movement and segregation in the town, discrimination in restaurants, academic freedom and university autonomy, protest against the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Student Movement on campus.
Milestones
Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center · 2004 · Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center
Milestones is the newsletter of the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published by the center and dated 2004. African American students in Chapel Hill and the center itself are its subject. As a serial it carries programs, speakers and news of Black student life on campus.
Program guide
2004 · Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center
The program guide of the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center at Chapel Hill, issued in illustrated volumes and recorded from 2004, with the 2000 to 2001 issue lacking that title.It concerns African American students and their societies and clubs. Volumes range from 18 to 26 cm.
Sauti mpya : the literary magazine of The Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center.
2004 · The Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center
Literary magazine of the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published from 2004. Topics include American literature by African American authors in North Carolina and student periodicals in Chapel Hill, so the issues carry student poetry and prose. Volumes with illustrations, 22 to 28 cm.
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