Map

Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)

In 1995, Yonni Chapman organized the Freedom Legacy Project (FLP) to be a central resource space for social justice movements in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. A fact sheet, researched and written by Chapman for FLP, compiles the histories of numerous spaces around the campus to explore “the celebration of slavery, the Confederacy, and white supremacy that is embodied in the names of university buildings and its most prominent public monument, ‘Silent Sam.'” The spaces listed on this fact sheet have served as point of reference for other student organizations mobilized against the racialized campus landscape. One of these spaces, Smith Hall, is named for “General Benjamin Smith…governor and wealthy slave owner from Brunswick County.”

Smith Hall, in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Image Collection Collection #P0004, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Organization: Freedom Legacy Project

Space Use: Academic

Spatial Organizing Approach: Contestation

Date Created: 1851

Campus Space: Saunders Hall

Citation: Fess Up Silent Sam Fact Sheet in the John Kenyon Chapman Papers #5441, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.