The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History

The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History (originally the Black Cultural Center) was founded on July 1, 1988 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The center’s goal, according to its first director, Margie Crowell, was to advance black literary and artistic endeavors while trying to understand the cultural diversity on campus. In the fall of 1991, after the successful lobbying of the UNC board of trustees by a group of students, the center was renamed for Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone, an associate professor of Afro-American studies who had died on August 10, 1991, at the age of 51, after suffering a stroke. Dr. Stone was director of the Afro-American Studies curriculum from 1974 to 1979, and from 1974 to 1980 she was adviser to the Black Student Movement, an organization that would later press for renaming the Black Cultural Center in her honor.

From its inception, the Black Cultural Center was in the midst of controversy. Soon after the Black Cultural Center’s creation, university trustee John Pope was quoted as saying, “it seems to me if (black students) are interested in a Black Cultural Center, maybe those students should attend a black university.” An editorial in UNC’s student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, called Pope’s comment “appalling.” Students turned out to be very interested in a Black Cultural Center: the movement for a free-standing center was the largest student protest movement UNC had seen since the Vietnam War.

On Tuesday, March 17, 1992, a hundred students assembled at South Building, the center of UNC’s administration, to demand an answer from Chancellor Paul Hardin III about three demands: higher-wages for UNC’s housekeepers, a free-standing Black Cultural Center, and an endowed professorship in Dr. Sonja Haynes Stone’s name. Since its foundation nearly four years prior, the BCC had been located in a 900 square-foot renovated snack bar inside the Student Union, and both students and administrators alike agreed that it needed more space. But Hardin’s answer was negative on all counts. He, like many other administrators, was concerned that a free-standing Black Cultural Center would lead to segregation and separatism, and he suggested an addition to the union as an alternative.

On Saturday, September 3, 300 demonstrators gathered outside Paul Hardin’s house to shout their demands for a free-standing center. The students were broken up by the police around midnight. Student involvement continued to grow, and on Thursday, September 10, somewhere in the range of 600 to 1500 students peacefully marched into South Building and presented Chancellor Hardin with a letter demanding that he support a free-standing center and choose a site by November 13. Students reportedly waved from the windows chanting “black power,” and disrupted work for 15 minutes. Their letter came with an ultimatum: “Failure to respond to this deadline will leave the people no other choice but to organize toward direct action.” The event, which ended with a rally in the pit, UNC’s social center, was organized by a coalition of black athletes, the Black Awareness Council. Margo Crawford, the Black Cultural Center’s director at the time, attributed much of the movement’s progress to the four football players - John Bradley, Jimmy Hitchcock, Malcolm Marshall, and Tim Smith - who founded the Black Awareness Council.

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