The full story
On the morning of September 16, 1990, during Harvey Gantt's U.S. Senate race against Jesse Helms, housing staff found a Gantt poster in Mangum Residence Hall defaced with racial slurs and a pro-Helms slogan. Housing Director Wayne Kuncl wrote Mangum residents on September 19, and the Daily Tar Heel first reported it on September 25; Black Ink faulted the paper for waiting about a week. On September 30 two signs with anti-homosexual symbols were taped over the floor signs on the fifth floor of Carmichael Residence Hall, home of the UNITAS multicultural living-learning program. Area director Anne Presnell said there were no leads, and Dean of Student Affairs Frederic Schroeder said the University should not tolerate such harassment.
On the morning of October 12 members of the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association found anti-gay slurs scratched with a key into their painted Cube announcement for National Coming Out Day. The group counted it the third harassment incident in four weeks, after the Gantt poster and the Carmichael signs, and reported it to the Justice Department under the new hate crimes statistics law. The same day, at a Faculty Council meeting, Chancellor Paul Hardin announced a Chancellor's Committee on Community and Diversity to address diversity at the University during a semester of racial incidents. A letter calling for fewer Jewish faculty members at American universities and naming UNC among its targets reached Academic Computing Services in Phillips Hall and was reported to police on October 16; police said it held no threat, and Hillel's director called it the work of a crank.
During the homecoming queen elections, the newly elected queen, who was Black, found a computer-printed note on her car's windshield on October 18 saying in part that 'we will not have another' Black queen, and her tires were later damaged. On the night of October 21 University police found 'KKK' spray-painted in large red letters on a state-owned Academic Computing Services car in the Undergraduate Library parking lot, its hood stomped and windshield smashed. Police called it childish vandalism, while Black Student Movement president Sabrina Evans said it showed a racist undercurrent the University had not dealt with.
At noon on October 22 students held a Rally Against Hate in the Pit against the defaced poster, the Carmichael signs, the slurs on the Cube notice and the note on the homecoming queen's car. Speakers came from Students for the Advancement of Race Relations, the Network for Minority Issues, the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, UNITAS and the Black Cultural Center, whose director Margo Crawford said the letter on the queen's car made the campus look like a plantation. On November 1 a small group of students, arms linked, marched from the Pit to South Building with Students for the Advancement of Race Relations and left a petition signed by 1,678 students at the chancellor's office, asking for an investigation policy for hate crimes and a required course on oppression with a race-relations workshop for freshmen. Black Ink listed the note among the semester's racial incidents. A year after its founding, the 22-member Committee on Community and Diversity issued its report after an 11-month study.
Background on Black student activism at UNC
Background reading on Black student activism at UNC. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
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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