The University of North Carolina Chapel (UNC) at Chapel Hill will change the name of Saunders Hall so it no longer commemorates a Klu Klux Klan leader.
According to the Washington Post, the school announced its decision Thursday after students and community members advocated for a change. UNC did not honor the request of many students who wished to have the building named for Zora Neale Hurston.
The building is now called Carolina Hall.
"The KKK was a violent, terrorist organization that was illegal in the United States during Saunders' era," UNC said in a statement. "He was compelled to appear before a Congressional hearing in 1871 to answer for his reputed involvement in the KKK, but he refused to testify, pleading his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself."
William L. Saunders is a UNC alumnus and served as a colonel in the Confederate Army as well as North Carolina's Secretary of State, Reuters noted. The UNC Board of Trustees voted in 1920 to name the building Saunders Hall. The trustees now say that decision was a mistake, as Saunders served the KKK as chief organizer in North Carolina from 1869-1870.
"Today's decisions make an unequivocal statement about Carolina's values and the importance of continuing to cultivate an inclusive and positive educational atmosphere for our campus," Lowry Caudill, chair of UNC Board of Trustees, said in a statement. "We want to prepare our students to be effective leaders with an understanding of history, but also with an eye to the future. These efforts to curate the campus and teach the past with greater context will present future generations with a more accurate, complete and accessible understanding of Carolina's history."
The building will also get a plaque that reads: "We honor and remember all those who have suffered injustices at the hands of those who would deny them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
