Money quote from N&R editor and publisher Jeff ‘Grits’ Gauger’s last word on the UNCG board of trustees vote to remove the name of former Gov. Charles B. Aycock from its campus auditorium:
So, yes, we may be grateful to the gifts bestowed by our forebears, except when we’re not (nuclear bombs, global warming, toxic industrial substances, etc.). But we owe them nothing. Any honors conferred today are given with the goal of relating their story to our lives and culture today.
Our sole debt is to the present and future, to which we owe earnest work to preserve and improve what we have received.
Key word being ‘etc.’—- I get the feeling Gauger’s list is long, and racists’ names on public buildings only adds to it. Good thing we owe the forbears nothing when we’re doing all the heavy lifting here.
Question is who or what will their name above the columns on Tate and Spring Garden streets that has true relevance with today’s generation? I’d think that would be the ultimate goal, considering the fact—-as UNCG Chancellor Frank Gilliam put it in an N&R op-ed—a building’s name can have ‘psychic benefits” for students.
