South Charlotte library sheds the name of NC governor who was white supremacist
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Name changes in Charlotte
Righting past wrongs and honoring civil rights heroes: Increasingly, local leaders are examining the history of Charlotte and choosing to rename some streets and buildings, including schools.
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The name of a white supremacist North Carolina governor will be removed from a Charlotte Mecklenburg Library branch near SouthPark mall in south Charlotte, library officials said this week.
Morrison Regional Library will now be known as SouthPark Regional Library, the library board of trustees agreed.
The library was originally named for Gov. Cameron A. Morrison, who helped lead the white supremacy campaign of 1898 that terrorized Blacks and led to policies of segregation, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
“Cameron Morrison Fought a Glorious Fight For the Cause of White Supremacy in North Carolina in 1898-1900,” read one of his 1920 newspaper ads when he ran for governor.
Morrison’s grandchildren donated the land for the library in 1989 and worked closely with library officials on the new name, according to a library news release.
In coming months, signs at the branch and materials across the library system will be changed to reflect the new name, officials said.
“Systemic racism and inequity have no place in public libraries other than as recorded history to remind us how we got to this moment in time,” Charlotte Mecklenburg Library CEO Lee Keesler said in the release announcing the change. “As a trusted institution, we are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone in our community.”
The release did not cite any specific actions by the former governor.
Asked by the Observer, library spokeswoman Ann Stawski said in an email: “This change was recommended due to the former governor’s historic and documented actions that do not align with the library’s current statement on racism and inequity and internal policies.
“We are committed to ensuring every library is an inclusive, equitable and welcoming space for all residents of Mecklenburg County.”
In a 2006 interview, Morrison’s grandson Johnny Harris, who developed SouthPark mall, said he was surprised to hear detailed accounts of his grandfather as a leader of the “Red Shirts.” That militant arm of the Democratic Party kept black voters from going to the polls, sometimes by violence, the Observer reported.
In this week’s library news release, Harris is quoted as saying: “We remain as committed to building a stronger Charlotte-Mecklenburg today as we did when we gifted land more than 30 years ago for a needed library.
“Our family and Charlotte Mecklenburg Library share a mutual pride in strengthening our community, and we recognize that our libraries are a wonderful benefit to county residents,” Harris said.
Changing the library name was the first of nine planned removals, relocations or renamings of “commemorations” throughout the 20-library system “whose history, meaning or presence does not align with the Library’s current position on racism and inequity,” library officials said.
Keesler had convened an “internal legacy audit” to review commemorations and collectibles in the system. He also recently announced the formation of a racial equity task force “to expand equity, diversity and inclusion throughout the Library system,” according to the release.
In coming months, library staff will “remove and relocate collectibles throughout the system as recommended by the audit,” according to this week’s announcement. They include:
▪ Morrison farm photographs, circa 1930s/1940s, at SouthPark Regional Library, formerly Morrison.
▪ Bust and bronze medallion of Civil War-era N.C. Gov. Zebulon Vance in the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room.
▪ Bust of poet John Charles McNeil in the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room.
▪ Lithograph of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room.
▪ Artwork from Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” in the Mint Hill Library.
▪ Beaver Dam Plantation picture at Davidson Library.
▪ Josephus Daniels Charitable Foundation plaque at Main Library. Daniels was a white supremacist who bought The (Raleigh) News & Observer after it went bankrupt in 1894. He used the paper in 1898 “to foment fear and anger toward Blacks and to quell their growing influence at the time in local and state politics,” the newspaper previously reported.
▪ Adaptation of “Aladdin” artwork at the South Boulevard Library.
In September, N.C. A&T University trustees voted to remove Morrison’s name from Morrison Hall, a dormitory on the campus of the historically Black school, the Greensboro News & Record reported.
In June, the University of North Carolina trustees voted to end the university’s 16-year moratorium on renaming campus buildings. The move was made to enable the renaming of buildings that originally honored white supremacists, including Morrison Residence Hall on the Chapel Hill campus.
The campus trustees followed that decision up in late July by voting to remove the names of white supremacists Charles B. Aycock, Julian S. Carr and Daniels from their respective buildings. The name of Thomas Ruffin Sr. will be stripped from that residence hall, but it will still honor his son, Thomas Ruffin Jr., The News and Observer reported.
The trustees did not vote to remove Morrison’s name.
This story was originally published October 20, 2020 at 3:24 PM.
