Unsung Founders Memorial (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Dublin Core
Title
Unsung Founders Memorial (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
Subject
Subject (Topic)
Enslaved persons
Public art
Public sculpture
North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Slavery--North Carolina
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Subject (Object Type)
Commemorative sculpture
Commemorative sculpture
Description
The memorial includes a stone tabletop supported by 300 bronze male and female African American figures, their arms raised over their heads as they collectively hold the weight of the tabletop. The differing dress of the figures-- some are shown in suits, while others are semi-nude and bare foot-- appear to represent a range of economic classes. The table is surrounded by five black stone seats.
Creator
Suh, Do-Ho, 1962-
Source
Photographs by Renée Ater
Date
November 5, 2005
Contributor
University of North Carolina Graduating Class of 2002
Rights
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27599, United States
Format
JPEG
Language
English
Type
Visual Arts-Sculpture
Coverage
McCorkle Place, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514, United States
Has Part
Inscription around the edge of the table:
THE CLASS OF 2002 HONORS THE UNIVERSITY’S UNSUNG FOUNDERS — THE PEOPLE OF COLOR BOND AND FREE — WHO HELPED BUILD THE CAROLINA THAT WE CHERISH TODAY
THE CLASS OF 2002 HONORS THE UNIVERSITY’S UNSUNG FOUNDERS — THE PEOPLE OF COLOR BOND AND FREE — WHO HELPED BUILD THE CAROLINA THAT WE CHERISH TODAY
Medium
Black granite; Bronze
Bibliographic Citation
Ater, Renée. “The Challenge of Memorializing Slavery in North Carolina: The Unsung Founders Memorial and the North Carolina Freedom Monument Project.” In Politics of Memory: Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space, edited by Ana Lucia Araujo, 141–156. Routledge, 2012.
McMillan, Timothy J. "Remembering Forgetting: A Monument to Erasure at the University of North Carolina." In Silence, Screen and Spectacle: Rethinking Social Memory in the Age of Information, eds. Lindsey A. Freeman, Benjamin Nienass, and Rachel Daniell, 137-162. Berhahn Books, 2014.
Wilder, Craig Steven. Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
University of Virginia. "Universities Studying Slavery." President's Commission on Slavery and the University. https://slavery.virginia.edu/universities-studying-slavery/.
Rights Holder
Renée Ater
Still Image Item Type Metadata
Original Format
Sculpture
Collection
Citation
Suh, Do-Ho, 1962-, “Unsung Founders Memorial (Chapel Hill, North Carolina),” Contemporary Monuments to the Slave Past, accessed October 1, 2026, https://mail.slaverymonuments.org/items/show/1125.