Today is University Day @UNC. Started in 1877 by white supremacists to mark the restoration of their power after Reconstruction by linking it to & glorifying the Univ.'s settler colonial origin story.

It should be a day to reckon with those legacies, not celebrate them.

1/8

UNC closed from 1871-1875. The drive to reopen the Univ. (led by Cornelia Philips Spencer and others) was tied to a white supremacist "redemption" narrative: to return NC to white rule, drive out "carpetbaggers," & roll back black civil rights.

2/8

As UNC was opening back up, conservative Democrats regained political control of NC thru the election of 1876. Federal troops were withdrawn from NC in April 1877. In Oct. of that year, Gov. Zebulon Vance called for a celebration in Chapel Hill - the first "University Day."

3/8

An aside: the very first student to return to campus when it reopened in 1875 was Francis D. Winston, who went on to found "white supremacist clubs" & called on whites to "re-establish Anglo-Saxon rule," during the movement that led to the 1898 Wilmington Massacre.

4/8

Along w/ Univ. Day, after reopening, white supremacist leaders sought to enshrine "heroes" from UNC's early days & the Civil War. Klan leader Wm. Saunders developed tablets for Memorial Hall (where Univ. Day is held, flanked by his Confed. cenotaph): https://twitter.com/sams_reckoning/status/1127765309027487749

5/8

Since 1877, UNC's Univ Day celebrations have gone on largely unchanged with the same traditions, symbols, regalia, and (Masonic-based) rites, w/o much critical thought given to its white supremacist roots or larger meaning.

6/8

This year Univ. Day happens to fall on Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Why are we still celebrating the 1793 groundbreaking of the #UNCPlantation on land dispossessed from native people who still thrive here?!

7/8

Sign and support @CIC_UNC's petition to have UNC recognize October 12th as Indigenous Peoples' Day: https://heellife.unc.edu/submitter/form/collectsubmitteridentity/4bbf3122-e289-4c53-a226-bcba0688efc8

8/8