NC State University- STOP honoring white supremacists and racists.
NC State University- STOP honoring white supremacists and racists.
The Issue
There are 8 buildings on North Carolina State University’s campus that continue to honor the confederacy, white supremacists, and racists in their namesakes. 111 Lampe Drive was the 9th building to add to this list. It was renamed in 2020 after a petition and efforts were made after the history of its previous namesake was more widely known. Daniels Hall was named after Josephus Daniels who rallied and led a group of white supremacists into the city of Wilmington in 1898. Between 60-300 people were murdered along with buildings and property destroyed. This effort by Daniels resulted in white supremacist control and they brought upon their ideals of racial segregation on the black communities who lived there.
Poe Hall:
Poe Hall honors Clarence Hamilton Poe. He is known for his advocacy “of rural racial segregation in North Carolina, due to the rapid increase of African American farm ownership in the early twentieth century. He was motivated both by modern, social Darwinist assumptions and by his concern that the rise of black farm owners was undermining poor white farmers' ability to compete.” (Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South). He once stated that: “There were “too many” black people in the South, and because of this, white farmers had too few opportunities to forge strong bonds with other whites—a factor driving them out of the countryside.” (Southern Segregation South Africa-Style, 2013).
Poe also “did not believe that different “races” had their own significant contributions to make to the world; instead, he believed that African Americans “made no important contribution to civilization . . . no great achievement in science, government or religion . . . [and that they were the great beneficiaries of] contact with the white man’s own opulent civilization.” Thus it was all the more galling to him that their ability to live on less than whites would help blacks to “outdo the white man in getting possession of the land, the ultimate source of all wealth.” The white man needed more protection than the black man, Poe believed.” (Southern Segregation South Africa-Style, 2013).
“Poe himself viewed Southerners as part of an international effort to take up the “white man’s burden”—a burden that they had already “borne for more than thirty years,” he wrote in 1902.” (Southern Segregation South Africa-Style, 2013).
This rhetoric is extremely harmful as it perpetuates the principles of segregation. As we all progress as a society and educate future generations, it is our responsibility to correct any wrongdoings that remain from an antiquated and racist civilization. One of those being the honoring of a man who supported segregation and continues to live in memory in relation to our very college.
The Oxford Dictionary states that the definition of a white supremacist is “a person who believes that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups, in particular black or Jewish people.”. With Clarence Hamilton Poe’s writings, ideas, and quotes, one would be justified to label him as such.
Tompkins Hall:
Tompkins Hall honors Daniel Tompkins who was “a pronounced racist.” It was well known that he argued against the ideas of abolition, civil rights, and child labor laws. “Tompkins was also part-owner of the Charlotte Observer when it aided in a statewide white supremacist campaign in the late 19th century.”
Holladay Hall:
Holladay Hall honors Alexander Holladay. He was a colonel for the Confederacy in the American Civil War.
Park Shops:
Park Shops honors Charles Park who was the first Vice President of the Raleigh White Supremacist Club. His efforts aimed to deny the right to vote to Black Americans. He was celebrated for his work in passing a state constitutional amendment that required a poll tax and a literacy test for the black people who lived in his community.
Dan Allen (Street and Parking Deck):
Dan Allen was the Secretary of the Raleigh White Supremacist Club. He worked alongside Charles Park in the 1900 State Election in which “violence by … white supremacy organizations kept blacks away from the polls.” There were reports by The Morning Post that Allen would wake up at 5 am to “care for the interests of Anglo-Saxon North Carolina.”
Brooks Hall:
Brooks Hall honors Eugene Brooks who published a 1911 children’s textbook. In that book, The Story of Cotton, Brooks told his audience that white people were “the superior race”. He also stated that enslaved African Americans could not be free because of their “semi-savage state” that would “threaten the happiness of the white race.”
David Clark Labs:
David Clark Labs honors David Clark who was “so boisterously racist and antisemitic on campus that his father, a veteran of the Confederate Army, advised him to be more discrete.”
Polk Hall:
Polk Hall honors Leonidas Lafayette Polk who supported rural segregation and was reported to have said racist statements on multiple occasions. He also started the “progressive farmer” in 1886. This is the very newspaper that allowed Clarence Hamilton Poe to spread his own ideas about rural segregation.
It is the responsibility of the institution to remove the names of these men who upheld and advocated for beliefs that are not aligned with the current ideals of the college. North Carolina State University is aware of the history of these buildings, but the only action was in the 2020 name change of Daniels Hall.
What will it take for these buildings to cease the honoring of the confederacy, white supremacists, and racists?
If you want to read more:
https://bricklayers.history.ncsu.edu/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.3098/ah.2013.87.2.170.pdf
797
The Issue
There are 8 buildings on North Carolina State University’s campus that continue to honor the confederacy, white supremacists, and racists in their namesakes. 111 Lampe Drive was the 9th building to add to this list. It was renamed in 2020 after a petition and efforts were made after the history of its previous namesake was more widely known. Daniels Hall was named after Josephus Daniels who rallied and led a group of white supremacists into the city of Wilmington in 1898. Between 60-300 people were murdered along with buildings and property destroyed. This effort by Daniels resulted in white supremacist control and they brought upon their ideals of racial segregation on the black communities who lived there.
Poe Hall:
Poe Hall honors Clarence Hamilton Poe. He is known for his advocacy “of rural racial segregation in North Carolina, due to the rapid increase of African American farm ownership in the early twentieth century. He was motivated both by modern, social Darwinist assumptions and by his concern that the rise of black farm owners was undermining poor white farmers' ability to compete.” (Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South). He once stated that: “There were “too many” black people in the South, and because of this, white farmers had too few opportunities to forge strong bonds with other whites—a factor driving them out of the countryside.” (Southern Segregation South Africa-Style, 2013).
Poe also “did not believe that different “races” had their own significant contributions to make to the world; instead, he believed that African Americans “made no important contribution to civilization . . . no great achievement in science, government or religion . . . [and that they were the great beneficiaries of] contact with the white man’s own opulent civilization.” Thus it was all the more galling to him that their ability to live on less than whites would help blacks to “outdo the white man in getting possession of the land, the ultimate source of all wealth.” The white man needed more protection than the black man, Poe believed.” (Southern Segregation South Africa-Style, 2013).
“Poe himself viewed Southerners as part of an international effort to take up the “white man’s burden”—a burden that they had already “borne for more than thirty years,” he wrote in 1902.” (Southern Segregation South Africa-Style, 2013).
This rhetoric is extremely harmful as it perpetuates the principles of segregation. As we all progress as a society and educate future generations, it is our responsibility to correct any wrongdoings that remain from an antiquated and racist civilization. One of those being the honoring of a man who supported segregation and continues to live in memory in relation to our very college.
The Oxford Dictionary states that the definition of a white supremacist is “a person who believes that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups, in particular black or Jewish people.”. With Clarence Hamilton Poe’s writings, ideas, and quotes, one would be justified to label him as such.
Tompkins Hall:
Tompkins Hall honors Daniel Tompkins who was “a pronounced racist.” It was well known that he argued against the ideas of abolition, civil rights, and child labor laws. “Tompkins was also part-owner of the Charlotte Observer when it aided in a statewide white supremacist campaign in the late 19th century.”
Holladay Hall:
Holladay Hall honors Alexander Holladay. He was a colonel for the Confederacy in the American Civil War.
Park Shops:
Park Shops honors Charles Park who was the first Vice President of the Raleigh White Supremacist Club. His efforts aimed to deny the right to vote to Black Americans. He was celebrated for his work in passing a state constitutional amendment that required a poll tax and a literacy test for the black people who lived in his community.
Dan Allen (Street and Parking Deck):
Dan Allen was the Secretary of the Raleigh White Supremacist Club. He worked alongside Charles Park in the 1900 State Election in which “violence by … white supremacy organizations kept blacks away from the polls.” There were reports by The Morning Post that Allen would wake up at 5 am to “care for the interests of Anglo-Saxon North Carolina.”
Brooks Hall:
Brooks Hall honors Eugene Brooks who published a 1911 children’s textbook. In that book, The Story of Cotton, Brooks told his audience that white people were “the superior race”. He also stated that enslaved African Americans could not be free because of their “semi-savage state” that would “threaten the happiness of the white race.”
David Clark Labs:
David Clark Labs honors David Clark who was “so boisterously racist and antisemitic on campus that his father, a veteran of the Confederate Army, advised him to be more discrete.”
Polk Hall:
Polk Hall honors Leonidas Lafayette Polk who supported rural segregation and was reported to have said racist statements on multiple occasions. He also started the “progressive farmer” in 1886. This is the very newspaper that allowed Clarence Hamilton Poe to spread his own ideas about rural segregation.
It is the responsibility of the institution to remove the names of these men who upheld and advocated for beliefs that are not aligned with the current ideals of the college. North Carolina State University is aware of the history of these buildings, but the only action was in the 2020 name change of Daniels Hall.
What will it take for these buildings to cease the honoring of the confederacy, white supremacists, and racists?
If you want to read more:
https://bricklayers.history.ncsu.edu/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.3098/ah.2013.87.2.170.pdf
797
Supporter Voices
Petition created on September 26, 2022