Originally located on the first floor of Chase Hall, Upendo Lounge operated as a significant social space for Black students on campus, but was consistently under threat from administrators. Upendo is now located in the Student and Academic Services Building North, though the current iteration of the space bears little resemblance to the dynamic Upendo Lounge of the 1970s, a shift in power that is a result of University-enacted policies designed to diminish the potential for Black student power to be exercised on the campus.
Originally located on the first floor of Chase Hall, Upendo Lounge operated as a significant social space for Black students on campus, but was consistently under threat from administrators. Upendo is now located in the Student and Academic Services Building North, though the current iteration of the space bears little resemblance to the dynamic Upendo Lounge of the 1970s, a shift in power that is a result of University-enacted policies designed to diminish the potential for Black student power to be exercised on the campus.
Organization: Black Student Movement, Real Silent Sam Coalition
Space Use: Student Life
Spatial Organizing Approach: Creation
Date Created: 2007
Campus Space: Upendo Lounge
Citation: Interview with Chris Faison and Kendall Luton by Charlotte Fryar, 8 February 2017, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.