Cheek-Clark Building

Housekeepers Association Proposed Settlement Draft

Document Description: In meetings with lawyers and advisors, the UNC Housekeepers Association developed by January 1996, what they named “a modest proposal” for potential settlement with the University. In the proposal, the petitioners described, through each historical era the University’s relationship to African-American workers, citing scholarly research to show that the plantation system enslaved people had labored under during the first century of the University’s history had been reprised for the modern era in the supervisory system of the housekeeping division. Their proposal for remediation included back pay for every housekeeper, the creation of a housekeeper endowment fund, career programs and development, and free health and dental care for housekeepers and their families. Most significantly though, the housekeepers called directly for reparations, requesting a small $1000 “one-time payment to the designated heir of all black employees at UNC between 1793 and 1960,” as well as free tuition for children and grandchildren.

Full Version - A Modest Proposal


Organization: 
UNC Housekeepers Association

Date: 1/30/1996

Document Type: Legal Document

Creator: UNC Housekeepers Association

Document Collection: John Kenyon Chapman Papers, 1969-2009

Campus Space: Cheek-Clark Building

Citation: Proposed Settlement Agreement, Tinnen et al. v. UNC-Chapel Hill in the John Kenyon Chapman Papers #5441, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.