Own Ancestry Leads Back to UNC

My Brick Once Stolen: How My Own Ancestry Leads Back to UNC

By Chris Williams

Unless you live there, you may rarely think about McIver hall. But I think about it every day.

Photos of Williams outside of the UNC McIver dorm Not because it’s on the opposite side of campus from where the majority of Carolina’s Black students have always lived.

Not because of its unique architecture from almost every other dorm on campus.

I re ect on the signi cance of McIver every day because it is one of the most obvious historical signs that I am thriving in a space I was never meant to occupy.

I remember feeling slightly curious when I found out one of my friends, another Black man at UNC, was living in McIver during my rst semester here. Naturally, I had to go diving into the same (free) type of genealogy research Ancestry’s 3 million paying customers have already undertaken.Lorem ipsum

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Helena Gibson McIver. She was born 70 years before me, and her great-grandmother was Rosa McIver. Rosa was enslaved on Evander McIver’s plantation in Sanford, N.C. in the mid-1800s.

Unfortunately, McIver Hall isn’t named after my great-great-great-grandmother, a Black

woman enslaved almost 200 years ago. Instead, McIver Residence Hall takes its name from Charles Duncan McIver. He is the man who founded and served as the rst president of the University of

North Carolina at Greensboro. This McIver even happened to be a notable Tar Heel, hence the building name honoring his legacy on Chapel Hill’s campus.

What people often fail to consider is that, even if it were customary for the time, McIver would never have had he opportunities he had without the wealth his grandfather, Evander, was able to accumulate as the owner of that very plantation in Sanford where my great-great-great- grandmother lived.

Centuries later, North Carolina is dotted with symbols paying homage to these famous white

men. Sanford, where many of my cousins still live on former plantation land, has a McIver Street. The town in Lee County, North Carolina even had a McIver depot where the Western Railroad - which reached all the way to Fayetteville - was Sanford’s rst train line.

A statue of the educational pioneer stands within walking distance of the State Capitol in Downtown Raleigh. UNCG still has a McIver Street, parking deck, building, and designated location noting where the McIver house once stood. I mean, these things are only reasonable. McIver’s persistence led to what was then the State Normal and Industrial School, now known as UNCG. It was the rst institution of higher learning for white women in the state. Similarly, McIver was the rst to set up a vocational class at a non-state-funded school when he worked at what was then called Peace Institute. You may now know this school as William Peace University in Raleigh, also a few blocks from the State Capitol, today.

Still, what I nd even more interesting than McIver’s achievements are my personal connections to them. My mother always reminded me that our family had some relation to the founding of these institutions. It’s deeper than that - without the work of my ancestors, UNCG in paricular would never have been an idea tangibly realized.

My family and I are lucky to even have traceable history reaching so far back. I haven’t been able to nd the same depth of information for any of my other three grandparents’ lineages. But because of its rarity, this one connection is more meaningful to me than many people will ever know.

Many Black Americans simply can’t nd records beyond a certain point. Our ancestors were treated as property or fractions of people for centuries. This allowed families to be ripped apart at the will of white owners, and virtually ensured we were never represented in of cial documents like the census. Even after emancipation, systemic oppression prevented proper documentation of America’s Black populations, and lingering effects are even seen in the census today. My mother and I have both had the privilege of attending Carolina. Knowing that I am on a campus with buildings named after a man whose family pro ted from the exploitation of my own, I feel like I’ve truly come full circle. I have shown de ance in the face of a system that would do anything to prevent my success and prosperity.

Yes, I have faced racism and even xenophobia from those who look just like me on this campus. Regardless, I am a Black man taking advantage of all the resources provided to me. This Black History Month, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I can proudly say I know my roots.

Photo of Williams outside of the UNC McIver dorm