The @UNC @TarHeelFootball stadium is named for William Rand Kenan Sr. He was the commander of a white supremacist paramilitary force which massacred scores of black residents of Wilmington, NC in November 1898. Kindly read my story about it here: craigcalcaterra.com/blog/uncs-foot…
There a @UNC bylaw -- passed to head off building-naming controversies -- that prohibits the renaming of buildings. There is also a NC law prohibiting the moving of monuments for the same reasons. Which means that there is likely nothing that can or will be done about this.
In February a faculty board passed a motion to get an explanatory plaque added to the stadium to note the Kenan family's slave owning history (the Wilmington Massacre aspect was then unknown). The university has ignored it.
Whenever this sort of thing comes up, people complain of "erasing history." But it's the history of slaves and murdered blacks that is erased. It is the infamy of people like Kenan that is erased. The university was built in large part on white supremacy. That has been erased.
Anyway, I spent a lot of time on this and I hope you'll read it. craigcalcaterra.com/blog/uncs-foot…
