When Boise State University changed
the name of its indoor sports facility from
the Pavilion to Taco Bell Arena for a $4
million gift, students and faculty protested
the company’s treatment of farm workers
in Florida. The school’s faculty senate voted
17-2 to call for cutting ties with an Idaho-based Taco Bell franchisee. The bright red
Taco Bell still adorns the arena.
University of Cincinnati basketball fans
are comfortable calling the Shoemaker
Center “the Shoe.” They can’t get used to
“Fifth Third Arena,” named for a bank
whose CEO was chair of the school’s
trustees.
Bad boys — whatcha gonna do?
Part of what Tim McMillan ’ 80 likes to
do is, as he says, “problematize history” —
challenge you to look at events and people
in different ways, take your comfort zone
and turn it upside down. McMillan, an
adjunct assistant professor in African and
Afro-American studies, takes students and
faculty members on walking tours, and he’s
often surprised by how much they don’t
know.
The two-year-old Unsung Founders
Memorial, the small sculpture in McCorkle
Place, is a festival of material for McMillan.
The Unsung are the slaves and other
laborers — nameless, too — who built the
buildings named for slaveholders. Passersby
eat on the sculpture’s polished, flat top and
change diapers on it. When it rains, mud
splashes on the miniature people depicted
at the base. The inscription doesn’t include
the word “slave.”
“A lot of people think, after looking at
it, they’re still unsung,” McMillan said.
Near the memorial stands Silent Sam,
occasionally the target of graffiti and
demands for his banishment.
Over in the next quad is the building
named for Col. William Lawrence Saunders. Annette Cox ’ 77 (PhD) has
researched Saunders for UNC’s Virtual
Museum, designed to address some less
savory aspects of Carolina’s history. “There’s
been some talk over the years that we don’t
have a smoking gun on him being head of
the Klan,” Cox said. “I’m almost certain
that he was. From my reading, I’m not
cautious at all on saying that.”
But remember, McMillan says: Saunders
compiled a lot of historical records from
documents of his time, leaving a legacy that
enabled us to study the era. “Should we
not read the history he wrote because he
was an awful person?” he asks.
Charles Brantley Aycock (class of 1880),
governor, champion of white supremacy,
has a dorm named for him. The name of
Josephus Daniels (class of 1885) went on
the Student Stores building, long after
Daniels had used The News & Observer as
one of the state’s most powerful publishing
tools of the supremacy campaign.
The slave owner stigma extends to most
of the early trustees and presidents. Paul
Cameron of Cameron Avenue renown was
the largest slaveholder in the state in 1860.
Black students have described being
repulsed upon entering Saunders Hall. As
with Silent Sam, periodically there are calls
for some names to be changed.
So far the only one to lose a naming is
Cornelia Phillips Spencer, the hero of the
post-Civil War reopening of the University
who, upon further investigation of her published writings, had definite white supremacist leanings. Phillips’ name was taken off an
Grahams and Smiths
Graham dorm is named for Civil War
hero and state Sen. John
Washington Graham (class of 1857).
The Graham Memorial was an honor to
beloved UNC President Edward Kidder
Graham (class of 1898); the Frank
Porter Graham Student Union and the
Frank Porter Graham Child
Development Institute immortalize
Edward’s even more widely beloved
cousin, class of ’09.
Four Smiths are not related; only one
of them was an alumnus:
■ Mary Ann Smith, daughter of a
prominent Raleigh merchant, willed
half her estate to the University for the
teaching of chemistry; she eventually
lived in an insane asylum for many
years. Part of the money she left built
a wing onto Person Hall that was used
for chemistry teaching. In 1900, a new
dorm was needed and then-President
Venable took money from the Smith
fund to build it, and the trustees
named it for her. Mary Ann Smith
Building is expected to be renovated
as part of the Arts Common.
■ Three of the past four ACC
indoor track championships have
been held in the Eddie Smith Field
House, named for the lead gift donor,
class of ’ 65.
■ For outstanding career achievement by somebody who might not
have been cheering for the 1957
NCAA basketball champions, the
Dean E. Smith Center was dedicated
in 1986.
■ Benjamin Smith gave 20,000
acres of Tennessee land to the
University on the same day the N.C.
General Assembly approved fundraising for its first building. An original
trustee who was on the board for 35
years, his honor came finally in 1851
— the library called Smith Hall. But his
name is all but forgotten. In 1925, the
building was renovated for use by the
Carolina Playmakers, and its National
Historic Landmark designation is
Playmakers Theatre.
State Your Whole Name
Several buildings have the honoree’s entire name printed on
them, but only two come to mind that
typically go by the full name — Paul
Green Theatre and Bowman Gray
Pool, the latter, perhaps because it’s
mistakenly thought to be two people.
The one building usually called by the
honoree’s first name only is the Smith
Center.
