For the past century, former Gov. Charles Brantley Aycock has been revered. His birthplace is preserved as a state historical site. His statues grace the state and U.S. capitols. Schools, college buildings and even an entire neighborhood is named for him.

But Aycock's legacy in the violent white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900 -- once sugar-coated in history books -- is now being debated for the first time in North Carolina's highest political circles.

This week, Aycock became an issue in the governor's race when State Treasurer Richard Moore, a Democratic candidate for governor, proposed stripping the former governor's name from the Democrats' annual Vance-Aycock fundraising dinner scheduled for today in Asheville.

In a letter to the state Democratic Party, Moore made his case: "Aycock's victory fostered Jim Crow laws throughout the South that silenced the voice of millions of African-American voters for decades."

Some African-Americans such as Irving Joyner, a law professor at N.C. Central University in Durham, agree with Moore.

"By his actions," Joyner said, "Aycock was a 'rogue' governor and his racially divisive actions should not be honored by anyone in this state, especially the alleged 'new' Democratic Party, which now holds the political allegiances of the vast majority of African-American votes in this state."

He urged blacks to boycott the dinner if Aycock's name is not removed.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, Moore's chief rival, issued a statement saying, "It's appropriate to reconsider the legacy of Charles Aycock. But the issue of equality is one that North Carolina must continue to deal with on a much broader level." She went on to say the focus should be on fixing current inequities in several areas including education, health care and health insurance.

State Democratic Chairman Jerry Meek said the party's executive committee would review the Vance-Aycock name question at their meeting in January.

Removing his name from the event would signal a major shift in the way Aycock has been portrayed. Through much of North Carolina history, he was accorded political sainthood.

Aycock, who was governor from 1901-1905, has been honored as the state's "education governor." He led a statewide crusade at the beginning of the 20th century to improve North Carolina's schools, which were then among the worst in the nation.

By the end of his term, there were 690 new schoolhouses erected, including 599 for whites and 91 for blacks.

Aycock became an iconic figure among Democrats. Gov. Terry Sanford hung Aycock's portrait in the governor's office in 1961. Gov. Jim Hunt quoted Aycock on education during the last State of the State address of the 20th century in 1999. Aycock's words are etched on the outside of the state Education Building.

Often overlooked was Aycock's role as a leading spokesman in the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900, which historians say were marked by widespread violence, voter intimidation, voter fraud and even a coup d'etat of the government of Wilmington.

The violence was sparked by a political revolt in the 1890s that resulted in a biracial coalition of Republicans and Populists taking control of North Carolina government.

But with racist campaigns designed to lure whites, the Democrats won back the state legislature in 1898 and retook the governor's office in 1900.

The campaigns had far-reaching consequences: Blacks were removed from the voter rolls based on literacy tests, Jim Crow customs were encoded into law, and the Democratic Party controlled Tar Heel politics for two-thirds of the 20th century.

But some North Carolina historical accounts -- even in the 1990s -- did not acknowledge that part of Aycock's history.

Debates about how to treat historical figures such as Aycock are common, said Harry Watson, director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"This is a repeat of a very complicated set of questions that just keeps coming up and coming up," Watson said.

About 20 years ago, students at Charles Aycock Junior High School in Greensboro -- which Watson attended -- tried unsuccessfully to persuade the local school board to drop Aycock's name.

What about Jefferson?

Watson says that removing Aycock's name could lead to questions about other leaders, including Gov. Zebulon Vance, whose name also appears on the dinner. Vance is a former Confederate colonel and was North Carolina governor during the Confederacy. He also served as governor and U.S senator in later years.

What about the Democrats' other major dinner, the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner held annually in Raleigh, named after two presidents who were slaveholders, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson?

"I think [Aycock] is very much a figure like Thomas Jefferson," Watson said. "Jefferson was a more important figure. Both of them did very good things in this state or in this country. In both cases they advocated reforms inside a very wrong set of institutions. The truth is that these guys are figures of a very, very much mixed legacy."

One way to look at the issue, said Watson, is to separate Aycock the political figure from Aycock the historical figure.

Watson said it might be appropriate for political parties and communities to take into account modern sensibilities when choosing whom to honor. But Watson cautions against eradicating Aycock from history.

"My feeling is if you take down these discredited statues you are almost trying to re-create a past or a landscape of memory that doesn't include anything bad in it," Watson said. "It's almost like a coverup. It suggests that these things that happened in the past didn't happen."

NAACP convention

The issue will likely come up next week at the state NAACP convention in Wilmington.

The NAACP has scheduled a symposium, which includes noted historian John Hope Franklin of Durham, to discuss the white supremacy campaigns -- and the violence in Wilmington that accompanied the campaigns.

The Rev. William Barber, the NAACP president, said changing the name of the Vance-Aycock dinner is a fine first step. But Barber would like the state to enact some of the recommendations made by the state's Wilmington riot commission last year, including compensation for the families that lost property, and assistance for minority-owned businesses and home buyers.

"We should not only change the name and have apologies for slavery," Barber said, "we need to enact the 15 recommendations of the Wilmington riot commission, so that in changing names, we are also changing history."