UNC honors first Black professor and American Indian student with new building names
UNC-Chapel Hill dedicated the Hortense McClinton Residence Hall and the Henry Owl Building in a ceremony on campus Friday, honoring the legacies of two people of color instead of individuals tied to white supremacy and racism.
McClinton was the first Black professor at Carolina when she was hired in 1966. She joined the UNC School of Social Work faculty and became the first African American to hold a tenure-track appointment.
“I just never expected this, ever,” McClinton said at the ceremony. “And I appreciate it.”
McClinton, who is 103-years-old, reminisced on her time teaching at Carolina and said she learned a lot, including how to say “no.” She was on eleven committees during her first couple of years at UNC-CH because she was “the only black face on campus,” she said.
‘I was part of Black history’
McClinton loved spending time with and learning from her students, she said, and was proud to develop a course in interracial justice and racism that was taught across the state.
“I didn’t take courses in Black history, I was part of Black history,” Virginia Cárdenas said at the ceremony, quoting McClinton from earlier that day. Cárdenas gave remarks as the chair of the UNC alumni committee on racial and ethnic diversity.
Owl was the first American Indian and person of color to enroll at UNC-CH as a graduate student in 1928. A Cherokee from the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina, Owl earned a master’s of arts degree in history. His family attended the ceremony in his honor.
For decades, the residence hall has been named after Charles Aycock and the Student Affairs office building was named after Julian Carr. The UNC-CH Board of Trustees privately voted to rename the two buildings in November 2021, and the university announced the new names last December.
At the ceremony, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz shared an excerpt of an interview of McClinton where she was asked why she taught a course on institutional racism. She replied, “If you’ve been taught a certain thing all your life, you have to learn to know something different,” Guskiewicz said.
“Our university has a history ... that has often excluded important voices, and today we’re taking one step forward to learn and teach something different,” Guskiewicz said.
“We are on a journey as a campus to be more inclusive and welcoming,” Guskiewicz said. “We are not done yet.”
Other UNC buildings renamed
He thanked McClinton for her wisdom, grace, passion and commitment to service and said it is an honor to have her name as part of the campus landscape that the school is working to diversify.
These new building names were installed about a year-and-a-half after the board voted to remove Aycock and Carr in July 2020 after pressure and protests from students, faculty and alumni.
The trustees also voted to remove the name of white supremacist Josephus Daniels from the building that houses the UNC Student Stores, but have not picked a new name.
They also changed Ruffin Residence Hall to honor Thomas Ruffin Jr. instead of his father.
