Compiled October 2020, updated June, 2021, November 2021, December 2021, February 2022
Investigation of misuse of "Croatan" (or "Croatoan") as an identity term for Lumbee, Tuscarora, and other Indigenous people, Fall 2022-Summer 2023
-
Wilson staff recognized that "Croatan" had been misapplied to Indigenous people described in archival description. Staff identified 16 instances of "Croatan" in finding aids, then researched the history of the use of "Croatan" and what, if any, changes should be made to finding aid descriptions. Research eventually led to consultations with representatives from the Lumbee (Jennifer Randall at UNC Pembroke library) and Tuscarora (Donnie McDowell of Tuscarora Nation Tribal Public Relations) nations about the below statement that we will add to finding aids when appropriate. Donnie McDowell shared "Linguistic/Cultural Significance of the 'Croatan' Association" as part of our consultation.
-
“Croatan” (or “Croatoan") is an identity term that was used by the Indigenous peoples of the Hatteras and Roanoke Islands in the late 16th century. In subsequent centuries, the Indigenous peoples of Sampson, Craven, Robeson, Cumberland, Hoke and Scotland counties in North Carolina were thought to be the descendants of the Croatan Indians and were so called by North Carolina state officials; however, many tribal nations existed and exist now in this area who prefer to use their own identity terms, including the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina, and others.
In 2023, archivists examined the use of "Croatan" in Wilson Library archival collections and decided to leave this term in places where it refers to the Indigenous peoples of the Hatteras and Roanoke Islands, is part of a title, or is the proper name of a geographic feature or location. We have replaced "Croatan" with the appropriate identity term for materials that refer specifically to the groups noted above. When we are unable to make a determination, we use "Indigenous peoples." We recognize the complexity of this issue and welcome feedback on this decision at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.
-
As of July 2023, this statement has been added to the collection level processing information for the following collections: 3417, 3709, 4258, 4710, 4740, 5422, 5526, 40501, 70103. P0024, P0034, P0035, P0077, P0081, P0085, P0115.
- Audiovisual Archivist added descriptions to 534 videotapes found in the WTVD Moving Image Collection (04929). The finding aid previously listed only videotape titles and formats. The finding aid now includes detailed item descriptions and topics that the AV Archivist consciously edited from a tape inventory found in the collection control file.
- Removed "Negro" from folder titles in Office of the President: Bill Friday records
-
Original folder titles:
- Enrollment: Negroes, 1957-1958
- Extension Division: Cooperative Programs: NCSU/Negro Colleges and Universities, 1967
- Medicine, School of: Medical Foundation of North Carolina: Negro Membership: Medical Society of North Carolina, 1963
-
Revised folder titles:
- Enrollment: Black students, 1957-1958
- Extension Division: Cooperative Programs: NCSU/Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 1967
- Medicine, School of: Medical Foundation of North Carolina: Black members: Medical Society of North Carolina, 1963
-
Processing note:
- In 2021, archivists replaced the term "Negro(es)" in folder titles in this description with the terms "Black students" or "Black members" and revised "Negro Colleges and Universities" to "Historically Black Colleges and Universities." The original terms remain on the physical items.
- Removed from folder titles in Office of the President: Gordon Gray records
- In consultation with the Conscious Editing Steering Committee, updated language on the site's landing page, About page, and Guide to Religious Content in Slave Narratives
-
A redescription project facilitated by Special Collections Technical Services and the grant-funded Audiovisual Perservation project team
-
Focused on creating finding aids and upating MARC records for Southern Folklife Collection audio recordings with legacy MARC records that did not have corresponding finding aids
-
Revised titles and language found in legacy MARC records, resulting in 60+ finding aids. Examples: Alice D. Boyle Recordings of Demus Green, Nancy Hamilton Collection on Mollie Sequoyah, and Portia Crawford Collection of African American Folk Songs from North Carolina
These finding aids are highlighted in UNC Libraries LibGuide Voices of the Enslaved in Wilson Special Collections Library.
-
Revised David L. Swain Papers
-
Added content about George Moses Horton at abstract, subject headings, collection scope note, and container list.
-
Remediated description of enslaved people at abstract, subject headings, collection scope note, and container list
-
Added racial identities
-
Added format descriptions to files in container list
-
-
Revised William Bagley Letter Books
-
Added content about George Moses Horton at abstract, subject headings, biographical note, collection scope note, and container list
-
Added racial identities
-
-
In response to remediation request for updating “ex-slave”
-
Also updated term “life histories” to oral history interviews (called "life histories")
-
Added processing note about removing racist slurs and why we have left in “Negro” and “Colored”
-
Examples: Thaddeus Ferree and Federal Writers Project
-
Created spreadsheet for future revisions of other related FWP collections
-
In response to remediation request to call out Alfred Waddell’s direct role in Wilmington massacre and coup
-
Updated language (Wilmington race riots--> Wilmington massacre and coup, called "race riots" by its white supremacist supporters)
-
Added contextual background about the Wilmington massacre and coup
-
Added subject heading about Wilmington race riots so that all three collections will be addressed if this heading ever gets updated.
-
Added contextual background about term race riot used in a different context: racist violence against Blacks, often described as “race riots”
-
Examples: Alfred Waddell, Thomas W. Clawson, D.I. Craig
-
Removed slurs in transcribed titles and captions in finding aids and CONTENTdm metadata, replaced slurs in titles with [racist slur]
-
Removal work reflected in processing notes at collection level
-
Example: John T. Huddle Collection
-
Completed the addition of identity statements for creators, collectors, donors, and subjects.
-
Describing the creator/content in better context, as well as removing long narratives about accomplishments, positions held.
-
Rewrote description of Omar Ibn Said in Ambrotype Collection
-
Other examples: Nace Brock, Hugh Morton, Ben Moore Patrick
Revising U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School (P0027), spring 2020
- Revised abstract to highlight the importance of UNC to the war effort (WWII), the participation of women in the school, and the Black servicemen, who were among the first Black non-commissioned officers in the modern US Navy (previously only mentioned as members of the B-1 Band)
Revising Bayard Wootten (P0011) finding aid, spring 2020
-
Removed Wooten’s captions with racist slurs and language in finding aid and CONTENTdm metadata and replaced with devised titles
-
Abstract describes Wooten’s practice of including titles and captions that are racist
-
Processing note reflects revisions and notes that slurs still appear on materials and digital surrogates
Revising Rufus Morgan (P0057) finding aid, spring 2020
-
Removed Morgan’s captions with racist slurs and language in finding aid and CONTENTdm metadata
-
Replaced with alternative title (found in collection)
-
Abstract describes Morgan’s practice of including titles and captions that are racist
-
Processing note reflects revisions, notes slurs still appear on materials and digital surrogates
Revising Nace Brock (P0044) finding aid, spring 2020
-
Removed Brock’s captions with racist slurs and language in finding aid and CONTENTdm metadata
-
Replaced with alternative title
-
Abstract describes Brocks’s practice of including titles and captions that are racist
-
Processing note reflects revisions, notes slurs still appear on materials and digital surrogates
Revision of item level descriptions in North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives finding aids, spring 2020
-
Created 9 individual collections from 1135-z
-
Example: Susan Petteford Certificates
-
Created spreadsheet with analysis of other Miscellaneous collections for future revision work
-
In response to a remediation request from Research and Instructional Services, we removed the terms “feeble minded” and “mentally retarded” from the Cameron finding aid and replaced it with “intellectual disability.”
-
We made similar changes in the Joseph S. Reynolds Papers: “establish a state school for children with intellectual disabilities”
-
Added a collection-level processing note which indicated the changes in both Cameron and Reynolds.
-
The issue was not universally addressed across all finding aids. The term “retarded” can still be found in container lists for the C. Hugh Holman (04537), Terry Sanford Papers (03531), Daniel H. Pollitt Papers (05498), Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Records (40076).
-
The term “retarded” is also found in the titles of publications listed in finding aids and in the names of organizations listed in finding aids. For example, in the Floyd B. McKissick Papers (04930), “Map showing location of Soul City Company property for the Warren County Association of Retarded Citizens Homesite, May 1979.” We did not make any changes to publication titles or names of organizations in these finding aids.
-
The term “feeble-minded” can be found in the Miscellaneous Papers (00517), and the term “idiot” is found in the Wyche and Otey Family Papers (01608). These finding aids have not yet been remediated.
Revising Stephen Beauregard Weeks Papers finding aid, February 2020
- Contextual information about the history of boarding schools for Indigenous people and the coding system used in the identification of students and their families was added to the scope content note for Series 1A. Papers, 1820-1920 (Addition of 1982). Also included are links to related collections from the National Archives and Records Administration which provide avenues to supplementary research, as well as resources for more contextual information about the Bureau of Indian Affairs' boarding schools.
Louise Davis Photographs (40500-z), January 2020
- In the abstract, in addition to mentioning that Ms. Davis was the "…the first woman commencement marshal when she graduated in 1937..," information was included indicating that "…enrollment of women students at UNC was strictly limited.," and that the images are unique in part because they "…depict student life on the campus from the perspective of a woman in a predominately male environment."
-
Re-wrote abstracts for the following collections related to university history figures including J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton, William Laurence Saunders, Howard Washington Odum, Guy Benton Johnson.
-
In the Saunders finding aid, the new abstract is now more explicit about white supremacy, the Klan, and lynching. e.g., “Known items related to Saunders’ Klan activities and white supremacist ideology are two letters dated 1871 and 1874 about the murders by lynching of African American men near Hillsborough, N.C., and the failure of an amnesty bill for Klan members to pass in the state legislature.”
-
In the Hamilton finding aid, the new abstract contextualizes Hamilton’s historical research as part of the Dunning School and his SHC collecting. e.g., “The papers reflect Hamilton's historical, political, and social perspectives that were brought to bear on his collecting manuscript materials documenting affluent white families of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century American South.”
-
In the Johnson and Odum finding aids, the new abstracts center each sociologist’s work on marginalized people including Black people and people in the Lumbee tribe. e.g., “Project files document Johnson’s sociological research on the Ku Klux Klan, Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, musical abilities of African Americans, African American folk songs and folklore, legend of John Henry, desegregation in higher education, and Gullah Geechee people, culture, and language on Saint Helena Island in South Carolina. Also included are research files related to Johnson’s work on Gunnar Myrdal’s 1944 study of race relations in the United States, An American Dilemma.”
Hope Carter Photograph Album (P0121), summer 2019
- Abstract includes descriptions of images of white actor Boris Karloff, in "red-face," portraying a member of Choctaw Nation named Tishomingo. Included wording to clarify these images were taken on a movie set and include images depicting Black actors portraying enslaved people.
Charles Anderson Farrell Photographic Collection (P0024), summer 2019
- Described the images from the first public performance of the Lost Colony outdoor drama in Manteo, N.C. on 4 July 1937 as including "…offensive scenes of white actors portraying Indigenous people of the Croatan tribe."
-
In response to a remediation request from Research and Instructional Services, we rewrote narrative description in several places in the finding aid for the Preston Davie Collection where the Trail of Tears was described as “Cherokee migration.”
-
We also rewrote the abstract to decenter the colonialism (as much as possible) and to name the Indigenous peoples represented in the collection.
-
We added LCSH for the Indigenous nations and people who are documented.
Removal of illegal alien subject heading and other occurrences of the term in narrative description, April 2019
-
In response to a remediation request from Research and Instructional Services, we removed all occurrences of the dehumanizing terms “illegal aliens,” “illegal immigrants,” and other variations in the finding aids for Student Action with Farmworkers and Paul Cuadros
-
LCSH “Illegal aliens” was removed entirely and replaced with subject headings for the people against whom this slur was used. e.g., Mexicans--North Carolina--Photographs.,
-
Abstracts were rewritten to remove the offensive terms, and we reframed portions of the narrative description to center the communities documented in the collections. For example, we replaced “The subjects of the images include the living conditions of the immigrants...” with “Images document community members including farmworkers, poultry plant workers, and school children; cultural and social events and celebrations such as quinceañeras and Fiesta Latina; church events such as a passion play; and public events including a September 1999 meeting of the Siler City School Board, a February 2000 anti-immigration rally led by white supremacist David Duke, and the local response rallies.”
-
The term “illegal” in reference to people without documentation was also removed from the narrative descriptions or unit titles in the following finding aids: Daniel H. Pollitt, Eli N. Evans, Southern Tenant Farmers Union, WUNC. The term was replaced by the word “undocumented” except in the STFU in which we replaced an archivist-supplied use of “illegal immigrants” with farmworkers to match the context of the image described.
Revision of North Carolina Chapter of Delta Upsilon Fraternity Records, February 2019
-
In response to a remediation request from University Archives and Record Management, we added description to indicate that a photograph album contained racist images of white students in blackface. “Contains photographs of fraternity members in social settings. Includes images of white students wearing blackface at what is likely a Halloween party.”
-
We added the LCSH: Racism--North Carolina--Photographs.
-
At the time, LCSH did not have the heading Blackface except as it related to minstrelsy. LCSH has now added: Blackface, and that heading should probably be added to this collection’s finding aid and catalog record.
-
In response to a remediation request that was funneled through University Archives and Record Management, we reframed and rewrote the abstract for the Carr finding aid. The new abstract is explicit about Carr’s white supremacist ideology and contextualizes the historic term of art “race problem.” e.g., “The rhetoric in many addresses reflects Carr’s positions on what he and his contemporaries called "the race problem." In keeping with white supremacy movements in North Carolina at the turn of the twentieth century, Carr defended the institution of slavery, claiming it had been beneficial to the enslaved, and argued for denying full citizenship rights to African Americans. Included are Carr's 1899 speech supporting an amendment to the North Carolina constitution that disenfranchised African Americans and his address at the 1913 dedication of the Confederate monument later known as "Silent Sam" on the UNC campus.”
-
We also did some additional analysis on the addresses and Sunday school lessons series (the part of the collection where the 1913 Confederate Monument dedication speech at UNC is located) and added description about the contents. e.g., “The rhetoric in many addresses reflects Carr’s positions on what he and his contemporaries called "the race problem." In keeping with white supremacy movements in North Carolina at the turn of the twentieth century, Carr defended the institution of slavery, claiming it had been beneficial to the enslaved, and argued for denying full citizenship rights to African Americans. Included are Carr's 1899 speech supporting an amendment to the North Carolina constitution that disenfranchised African Americans and his address at the 1913 dedication of the Confederate monument later known as "Silent Sam" on the UNC campus.”
-
We also included a chronology in the biographical note to lessen the great-man centering of the finding aid. We left the original biographical note in the finding aid, but we indicated that this biographical note was written in 1988.
-
Began using "white” as an ethnic and racial identity for individual and families, in addition to "Black," "African American," "Jewish," and other familiar identity terms that we have used for decades in collection descriptions
-
Added to newly processed collections and to legacy finding aids when they are updated
-
Processing note explaining the practice and asking for feedback if we have misidentified.
-
Examples: Girtus Smith, Price Family of Rutherford County, N.C., and William Ferris