At NC State, controversy over statues is mostly silent

The walkway and road by Poe Hall was mostly quiet on a recent afternoon despite moderate traffic by Wolfline buses and the foot traffic of students going to and from class.

A cluster of five students stood in front of the hall named after a man with a controversial history. Backpacks on every shoulder, the five talked calmly.

The square, cemented pebble building was not vandalized by signs and graffiti. No one cried to tear it down or remove Clarence Hamilton Poe’s name for promoting segregation.

Four more students walked up the stairs to the red doors and went inside without hesitation. The others walked away and did not look back.

Even as protests continue against the “Silent Sam” monument at UNC-Chapel Hill, even as Duke University removed its statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, North Carolina State University has remained silent in comparison.

But its campus is not free from controversial building names.

N.C. State was founded 22 years after the end of slavery, heavily influenced by men who were considered “progressives” in many ways -- but not when it came to integration.

“We’ve always been silent when it comes to certain social issues concerning our students,” said Destinee Gray, referring to the issues of race and LGBT rights. Gray is black. She’s a senior film studies and creative writing major.

Many buildings on N.C. State are named after members of the Watauga Club, said Craig Friend, director of public history at N.C. State. Watauga Club members were “progressive southerners” and influential members in the foundation of the university.

But there are also many building names at N.C. State honoring founders who were are controversial in certain racial contexts.

Clarence Hamilton Poe promoted rural health, public education and equal railroad freight rates for the South through the Progressive Farmer, an agricultural publication.

He also supported rural racial segregation through that publication.

In an April 16, 1921, story titled, “How Can White Farmers Escape The Dangers of Negro Competition,” Poe argued that it is necessary to educate the “Negroes” in agriculture so that they could grow and sell crops at a competitive price and raise their living standards. He also argued that the “white man” would benefit from the lift in crops sales and community standards while remaining socially segregated.

“It is a good sign for the South when the Negro wants a better house, a better school, a better conveyance,” Poe said. “Of course, I do not need to say that we must keep the Negro socially as separate from the white man as the East is from the West. Of course, it is also up to the white man to meet the Negro’s competition by doing better farming, better work of every kind than the Negro does.”

In addition to membership in the Watauga Club, Poe was a state and national leader in agriculture and received the North Carolina Award for Distinguished Public Service in 1964, and was named an honorary Doctor of Agricultural Education in 1951. He was also a member of the State Commission on Racial Segregation in the Schools from 1954 to 1955. Poe Hall was built in 1971.

Watauga Club connections

The Watauga Club was organized on May 26, 1884, in Raleigh and pushed for the establishment of an industrial school in North Carolina as well as improved roads, modern agricultural methods and farmers’ institutes. Most of the members were young professionals including William Joseph Peele, Walter Hines Page, Josephus Daniels, Col. Leonidas L. Polk as well as Poe who reorganized the club in the 1920s as its president.

All had buildings named in their honor on N.C. State’s campus.

In 1887, the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, which later became N.C. State, was chartered. “It was the influence of those men on the state legislature that lead to its founding,” said Friend.

In 1886, Polk, a former Confederate officer and N.C. commissioner of agriculture, founded the Progressive Farmer which he used until his death in 1892 to promote best practices in agriculture and organization among farmers. The paper served as the “official state organ” of the Southern Farmers’ Alliance, according to the Encyclopedia of North Carolina.

Kilgore Hall was built in 1952 to honor Benjamin W. Kilgore, dean of the school of agriculture during the 1920s, who was also an owner of the Progressive Farmer Company along with Poe.

The history of these founding individuals and the few associated with the Progressive Farmer is not well-known by faculty and students who had varying opinions about the lack of protests against racism and confederate monuments at N.C. State.

Friend said that the N.C. State has a “legacy of progressive outreach” that “sort of gets hidden in the shadows” of UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke’s controversial memorial cultures.

“In the 1960s and 1970s N.C. State students were the ones raising hell and marching on the state capitol,” Friend said, referring to the May 1970 protest when 6,000 students marched to the capitol to protest the Vietnam War. A few days later, Cathy J. Sterling, the first female president of N.C. State’s student government, called for a peace retreat.

Today, some students at the university are still speaking out about social issues.

Katie Schell, a white student, said some students have made comments about the issue of racism and confederate monuments through social media and the free expression tunnel.

“Students are very active with their opinions in regards to racism and monuments; whereas, the university as a whole doesn’t have much to say,” Schell said.

‘Free speech can be good, bad and ugly’

Linda McCabe, former vice provost and now a faculty member in the college of education, said her office had initiatives to both promote diversity as well as deal with certain issues brought forward by students.

“Free speech can be good, bad and ugly,” Smith said. “We hope that people have civility in how to treat people and not offend people ... but we do have free speech in this country, and we have to abide by those regulations.”

Smith said her office worked to communicate with student organizations through newsletters and provide them with training about diversity and inclusion. She also said there is a Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT) that responds to reports of bias.

Beginning in their sophomore year, students also have the opportunity to learn about diversity in international and multicultural affairs though Foundations of Cultural Competence, a course that is offered in Fall and Spring semesters.

“We want faculty, staff and students to work with individuals who are different than themselves,” Smith said.

Smith said she believes the lack of confederate statues on campus is one of the reasons NC State doesn’t have the rallies and protests held at some other schools. But while the university lacks confederate statues, the racial context of some of N.C. State’s buildings reflects segregation and Jim Crow issues that were being enforced at the time.

Holladay Hall was built by prisoners of the state penitentiary, most of whom were black, Friend said, with donated bricks from the prison in 1889 at a cost of $203,000. It was originally called the Main Building, and was named in honor of the first president of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Alexander Quarles Holladay in 1915. Holladay was a confederate veteran.

Changing the name of any of these buildings would involve the Special Committee on Honorary Namings, which reviews proposals for naming facilities in recognition of either individuals with lasting, extraordinary achievements or organizations “pertinent to the university’s activities or history.”

If a benefactor or honoree’s reputation changes significantly and has the potential to “compromise the public trust, dishonor the University’s standards ... the naming may be revoked,” according to current N.C. State policy.

However, the policy notes that names should not be changed “simply because later observers would have made different judgments.”

Abigail Sprinkle is a recent journalism graduate of NC State University.