NEWS

Shenekia Weeks was hired in June 2021 as the Town of Chapel Hill’s first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Officer. The Town of Chapel Hill’s Diversity Officer collaborates with local leadership to direct, programs and activities designed to celebrate Chapel...

Today marks the start of National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15), an acknowledgment that began as a week, and later expanded to an entire month, to coordinate with the independence anniversaries of different Latin American countries. For over...

By Laurie Paolicelli “My life’s creative challenge is wielding the tension between powerful narrative and compelling data to center Black intellectual lives as craft and method. Radically better metaphors for a radically better public life.” —UNC Professor, Dr....

Diaspora Film Festival Kickoff: Thursday, September 29, 2022, 6:00 PM at the Varsity Theater, 123 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill UNC-Chapel Alum, Resita Cox’s acclaimed documentary, FREEDOM HILL, spotlights the oldest town incorporated by freed, formerly enslaved...

JOY. STRUGGLE. THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT THE BLUES. New York in the summer of 1930. The hopeful notes of the Harlem Renaissance haven’t rung true for Angel, a failed Cotton Club singer, and her group of friends. Could their fortunes change at the hands of a handsome...

Black Business Month is celebrated in August — it’s a time to acknowledge and appreciate black-owned businesses across the nation and all that they represent in the country’s continual striving for diversity and equality. Denise Moore, CEO of the Black Business...

As University of North Carolina Chapel Hill gets ready to welcome the Black Alumni Reunion to town on September 29, 2022, it’s a good time to be reminded of some of the pioneers who, in 1951, broke down barriers for the generations of students who followed. Their...

Joseph Jordan was hired in August 2021 at UNC. As vice provost, he provides leadership and support for centers and institutes in their work as key sites for academic and community engagement, support equity and inclusion across all units, and apply best practices to...

James Cates was stabbed to death on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1970 in an act of racial violence. This month, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced it will create a permanent memorial to James Cates Jr. The...

Join the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP as they commemorate their 75th Diamond Anniversary at their first Umoja Read-In event. This special gathering will take place on Saturday, October 8th at 4:00 p.m. at the Chapel Hill Library. All are invited to participate as a...

In July,the N.C. Black Alliance, in conjunction with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, held its inaugural statewide health fair in Chapel Hill. Binkley Baptist Church was one of a dozens of faith partners across the state that hosted similar health fairs. “The event was...

Debra Watkins, executive director of UNC Friday Center retired from her role as executive director. At the July 29, 2022 gathering, a large crowd of staff, clients and external stakeholders attended a dinner at the William and Ida Friday Center to celebrate the long...

The Town of Chapel Hill has been awarded a $375,000 grant from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation in support of our Building Integrated Communities (BIC) Initiative. BIC is a collaborative community planning effort with the Town, residents,...

The Black Alumni Reunion, the largest affinity group of University North Carolina Chapel Hill’s General Alumni Association, will once again meet in Chapel Hill, Sept. 29 – Oct. 2, 2022, at Sheraton Chapel Hill during a weekend in which UNC plays Virginia Tech “This...

Kevin Thomas, a.k.a. KAZE (pronounced Kah-zee) wasn’t born in Chapel Hill but he considers himself a Tar Heel. When Kaze was 13, the family picked up and moved to North Carolina and Kaze has made a name for himself in the arts, music, and civic engagement ever since....

While more people may remember the Freedom Riders of 1961, 16 civil rights activists helped set the blueprint for the demonstrations against Jim Crow laws in the South a few years earlier in 1947. On Friday, decades-old punishments in Orange County against four of...

On February 28 in 1960, nine young men from Chapel Hill’s all-black high school organized a sit-in at the Colonial Drug Store on Franklin Street. These 16 to 18-year-olds from Lincoln High were arrested for seeking the same service that was given to white customers....

The Chapel Hill Town Council voted unanimously to rename the Chapel Hill Transit facility on Millhouse Road for former Chapel Hill Mayor and state Sen. Howard Lee and his wife, Lillian Lee. Lee, the son of a Georgia sharecropper, won his first election to Chapel...

This exhibition explores how Aaron Douglas (1899-1979), one of the most important modernist artists of the Harlem Renaissance, gave visual form to the idea that Black American culture is a modern culture of diaspora. Douglas created figures that embody Pan-African...

A diverse coalition of educators, employers, governmental officials, and experts are pleased to introduce the Summer Careers Academy. Launching Summer 2022, these new trades training program will connect Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County youth with skills,...

One of the great moments in civil rights history took place in Chapel Hill on May 6th, 1969. That’s when Howard N. Lee was elected mayor of this town. In so doing, he became the first African American elected mayor in a predominantly white southern town since...