UNC Student Activists 'Demanding' School Changes Name of Building Named for KKK Leader

Students at the University of North Carolina (UNC) - Chapel Hill "are no longer asking" the school to rename Saunders Hall, they are "demanding" it be done.

The history department's building is named for Larry Saunders, a historian who graduated from UNC in 1854, but was also a Grand Dragon in the Klu Klux Klan's North Carolina chapter. Gathering at the campus' Silent Sam monument, about 150 students demanded the school "#KickOutTheKKK."

According to USA Today College, the group wants Saunders Hall renamed for Zora Neale Hurston, a writer who was UNC's first black student. UNC has iterated they are welcoming to student activism, though the decision to rename a building on the historic campus would have to come from the Board of Trustees.

Saunders Hall was named in 1922 and its namesake was a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War before becoming the Secretary of State and a UNC trustee. However, the protestors believe his legacy is that of being a local leader for the KKK, instilling racism, terror and hatred.

"A part of Carolina's history is inextricably linked with difficult issues of race and class, and how we address those issues today is important," UNC Chancellor Carol Folt told USA Today. "The Board of Trustees is taking a close look at how we can best move forward. In the meantime, we will create and support opportunities for respectful dialogue, and we will work even harder to help our community demonstrate our commitment to Carolina's core values of inclusion and respect."

There has been a desire to change Saunders Hall's name for more than a decade and protestors now believe such a decision is well past due.

"The Real Silent Sam Coalition organized all this stuff through the official avenues with the promise that it would be successful, only then to have that promise reneged," Dylan Su-Chun Mott, a UNC senior and demonstration organizer, told USA Today. "So, right now, we are taking more a populist movement approach to just get people out on the Quad and show the university that we're tired of being sandbagged."