Storyline
How Black students at UNC protested The Student Body, the Class of 1985’s bronze figures placed outside Davis Library in October 1990: the study-in, the lone vigils, the letter to Chancellor Hardin, the committee forum, the vandalism and racist messages, and the move to the Hamilton Hall courtyard in June 1991.
In briefIn October 1990 Black students began protesting The Student Body, the Class of 1985's bronze figures outside Davis Library, as racist and sexist stereotypes, with study-ins, vigils, petitions and a letter to Chancellor Paul Hardin. After a committee forum Hardin decided by January 1991 to move them. The statues were vandalized and defaced that winter and spring, and in June 1991 they were moved to the courtyard between Hamilton, Manning and Bynum halls. The basketball player was stolen from the sculpture in August 1993.
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On October 23, 1990 The Student Body, a $65,000 group of bronze figures by Julia Balk given by the Class of 1985, was placed outside Davis Library. From that day Black students objected to the statues as offensive stereotypes, holding study-ins, lone vigils, petitions and forums and meeting the chancellor, and asked that they be moved, for example to the Ackland Art Museum. On October 25 about 30 to 40 students studied beside the sculpture through the rain in a study-in called by the Black Student Movement, to show that Black and women students study. BSM president Sabrina Evans said the sculpture did not represent academic life, and a student petition to move it had about 520 signatures. On October 26, at the request of the Class of 1985 officers, Chancellor Paul Hardin put off the dedication set for the next morning so the campus could keep discussing whether the sculpture should be moved.
On November 7 a committee of student leaders sent Hardin a signed letter, delivered by Evans, saying the sculpture fed racist and sexist stereotypes and should go to a less prominent place on campus, and set November 15 for a reply. Hardin answered by phone on November 8, asking the Buildings and Grounds Committee to look for other sites while keeping the final decision for himself; protest organizers said the step delayed a decision. The same day the Committee Against Offensive Statues began keeping one protester with a sign beside the statues from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day until the sculpture was moved. At an emergency meeting on November 20 the Buildings and Grounds Committee set a public forum for November 29 in Gerrard Hall. Early on November 28 officers of the UNC College Republicans hung signs on the statues comparing the move to relocate them with the Mapplethorpe and arts-funding debate; the signs were torn down before morning. At the forum the statues' opponents objected to the committee's rule that a new site be outdoors near the center of campus and asked for an art setting such as the Hanes Art Center, while the College Republicans' chairman argued the statues should stay. Committee chairman John Sanders said the committee would make a recommendation so Hardin could decide over the winter break. Before dawn on December 5 an anonymous group calling itself Good Morning, UNC covered the figures in trash bags as a protest against U.S. military action in the Persian Gulf; police removed the bags.
By January 1991 Hardin, recognizing that a large part of the student body took offense, had decided to move the statues to a less conspicuous site between Hamilton and Bynum halls. On January 12, one of the first nights the statues were no longer under a 24-hour watch, vandals knocked the figure of a Black male student holding a basketball off its base and took the ball. On January 23 Physical Plant workers took the bent figure down to ship it to the Connecticut foundry where it was cast for a $2,100 repair, and the protest group objected to putting the ball back. On April 10 a racist message was chalked on the brick wall near the statues, and on April 19 someone put a sign bearing a racial slur on them. Student Body President Matt Heyd called the defacement unacceptable as he told students the statues would be moved after commencement. On June 25 and 26, 1991 Physical Plant workers moved The Student Body to the courtyard between Hamilton, Manning and Bynum halls. The move and a new base cost about $6,000, which used up the class's maintenance fund, and the basketball player rejoined the group after its repairs. On August 23, 1993 a University police officer reported that the bronze basketball player had been stolen from the sculpture between Manning and Hamilton halls.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 16 dated events in the chronology →
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Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.
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.
Louis Round Wilson's 40-page review of the University of North Carolina library, subtitled on the cover a review of its past and a look at its future. Wilson had directed the library for three decades before leaving for Chicago, and the university's main library carries his name. Published by the University of North Carolina Library in Chapel Hill in 1960, with illustrations.
Judith M. Panitch's illustrated account of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library between 1992 and 2004, published by the library in 2004. It is a history of the academic library, and the notes point out its references to the Aldo P. Magi collection of Thomas Wolfe material. 50 pages with color illustrations in an oblong format.
Edward G. Holley's twelfth Hanes Lecture, given in Wilson Library on 11 April 1995, on how the library, philanthropy and publishing helped the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill become a major American university. Printed by the Hanes Foundation, 28 pages.
Exhibition booklet from the Rare Book Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published in 1996, recording the benefactors whose gifts built the collection and the items they gave. The cover reads Selections from the Rare Book Collection, and Henry Pearson, 1914 to 2006, is among the people it covers. 32 pages with illustrations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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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