CHAPEL HILL, N.C.
In the early decades of the nation’s oldest public university, students
at the University of North Carolina had servants that kindled fires in
their rooms and cut wood to fuel their stoves.
And at the school that’s so proud of its history, archivists have
uncovered and are now displaying publicly evidence that those servants
were slaves.
“I think it’s important for us to know our own history and to be honest about it,” said Chancellor James Moeser.
“This university was built by slaves and free Blacks,” Moeser added.
“We need to be candid about that, acknowledge their contributions.”
The University of North Carolina, chartered in 1789, is among several
institutions of higher learning, joining banks and other financial
firms, that have taken recent steps to research and recognize their
historic ties to the slave trade.
North Carolina archivists were searching through records as part of a
project on the university’s first 100 years when they found records
that confirmed slaves helped construct campus’ buildings. Other records
showed that both faculty and university board members owned slaves.
