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Adolphus Williamson Mangum

Aldolphus Williamson Mangum (1834-1890) was born in Orange Co NC to a large plantation owner. He attended Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and became a circuit rider preacher. He joined the Confederate Army in 1861. In 1875 he was elected as the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy at UNC. He was remembered as an intense believer in the Lost Cause and Mangum Dormitory was named after him, his uncle, and his cousin in 1922.

Cornelia Spencer

Cornelia Phillips Spencer, born in Harlem, spent most of her life in Chapel Hill. Best known as the woman who rang the bell after UNC reopened after Reconstruction, Spencer’s legacy has raised questions as scholars and activists alike have reexamined her white supremacist views.

George Moses Horton

George Moses Horton (c. 1797-c. 1883) published his first book of poetry, The Hope of Liberty, in 1829 while enslaved on a Chatham County, North Carolina, farm. He is the only person to publish a book while enslaved; he hoped that book sales would buy his freedom. Horton often went to Chapel Hill to sell produce and, while there, several UNC students paid him for poems to give to their girlfriends.