George Moses Horton, a former slave and the first Black author published in the South, traveled eight miles to the University each Sunday from his home in Chatham County, selling produce and poems to the University’s students. Though Horton attempted to purchase his freedom several times, asking for aid from University presidents Joseph Caldwell and David Lowry Swain, he was not successful in his bid for freedom. In 2007, the University rededicated Hinton James North, one of the South Campus dormitories, as George Moses Horton Hall, marking what Chancellor James Moeser described “may be the first university building in this country named for a slave.”
Fryar, Charlotte. “Horton Residence Hall.” Personal Photograph. 24 May 2018.
George Moses Horton, a former slave and the first Black author published in the South, traveled eight miles to the University each Sunday from his home in Chatham County, selling produce and poems to the University’s students. Though Horton attempted to purchase his freedom several times, asking for aid from University presidents Joseph Caldwell and David Lowry Swain, he was not successful in his bid for freedom. In 2007, the University rededicated Hinton James North, one of the South Campus dormitories, as George Moses Horton Hall, marking what Chancellor James Moeser described “may be the first university building in this country named for a slave.”
Space Use: Dormitory and Housing
Date Created: 2002
Campus Space: McCorkle Place
Citation: Interview with Donelle Boose by Charlotte Fryar, 17 November 2017, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.