RALEIGH, N.C. _ Trustees at N.C. Central University voted Wednesday to strip the name of a segregationist former North Carolina governor from its main administrative building.
The structure will now be known as the James E. Shepard Administration Building, for the university's founder. A statue of Shepard already outside the building is a signature feature of the NCCU campus.
The building previous bore the name of Gov. Clyde Hoey, a Democrat who served from 1937 to 1941. He was also a U.S. congressman and U.S. senator from North Carolina. During his tenure, NCCU and other black colleges received state funding to offer graduate courses, setting the stage for universities' progress.
But Hoey is reported to have supported a segregated system of education.
In a letter to the campus Wednesday afternoon, Chancellor Johnson Akinleye said the university undertook a process to study the building's name at the request of the Student Government Association. A series of forums were held last spring, and a historian and archivist reviewed Hoey's history and provided information to the board.
Student government and the NCCU alumni association gathered suggestions for names that would reflect the university's values and history, Akinleye said. Shepard was the overwhelming favorite, he said.
"Dr. Shepard was a visionary leader who had a tremendous impact on the educational landscape here at NCCU and throughout the country," Akinleye wrote. "His central vision focused on training and cultivating moral leadership, which still remains a priority of our institution. Today, when young men and women walk pass the Dr. James E. Shepard Administration Building, it will be a place that honors our founder and stand as a point of pride for generations to come."
The university's Student Government Association president, Devanta Parker, said in a statement: "The renaming of the Dr. James E. Shepard Administration Building is monumental in NCCU's history as we move forward in our mission of promoting diversity, and ensuring that our campus is fulfilling the true values of both truth and service. This decision shows that the voice of the student body truly matters and when we speak up we can make significant change."
A change.org petition started in 2017 was titled, "The NCCU community refuses to celebrate a white segregationist." More than 2,700 people signed it.
The petition had suggested naming the building after those who had been involved in the 1957 Royal Ice Cream Parlor sit-in in Durham, including a local pastor, Douglas Moore, who had led the protest.
In a statement Wednesday, petition leader and NCCU senior Ajamu Dillahunt said the decision represented "a bottom-up, student-led victory, not a top-down administration victory."
He credited student government leaders and others with pushing for the name change in the aftermath of the 2017 toppling of the Confederate monument in downtown Durham. In reality, he said, student activists had wanted the Hoey name gone since the 1970s.
"Now that the name change has taken place we can truly begin to fulfill our mission of truth and service," Dillahunt's statement said, referring to NCCU's motto. "We are in a political crisis and our university must lead the way and contribute to the struggle for Black freedom."
