The Gillings School is located on the beautiful Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina or UNC. Long before the campus existed, there were teachers, students, elders and youth inhabiting the spaces we enjoy today, trading knowledge and goods with one another.
North Carolina is home to the Occhaneechi, Lumbee, Coharie, Haliwa-Saponi, Eastern Band of Cherokee, Meherrin, Tuscarora, Sappony and Waccamaw-Siouan Nations, along with many other indigenous peoples living in both tribal homeland and urban settings. In fact, North Carolina has the largest Indigenous population east of the Mississippi River. We acknowledge and give thanks to the First Peoples of this land and their descendants.
It is also important to acknowledge and honor the crucial role of enslaved people in the early days of this campus. Enslaved people were sold as escheated property to help fund the establishment of UNC, and the labor of enslaved people built UNC-Chapel Hill and undergirded its operations until Emancipation. We acknowledge and give thanks to the enslaved people who built UNC and their descendants.
May we build upon the memories and goodwill of all who walked and labored here before us with truth, integrity and honor.
