page_title: Charles Brantley Aycock
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Brantley Aycock / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Memorial to Charles Brantley Aycock by Gutzon Borglum. North Carolina State Capitol, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Now in the public domain, since Borglum died more than 70 years ago (March 6, 1941).
context_page_description: Charles Brantley Aycock was the 50th Governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. After starting his career as a lawyer and teacher, he became active in the Democratic Party during the party's Solid South period, and was a strong proponent of the white supremacy campaigns of that period. Aycock was one of the leading perpetrators of the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, in which whites took over the city government by force, the only coup d'état in U. S. history.
  He became known as "the Education Governor" for his advocacy for the improvement of North Carolina's public school systems, and following his term in office, he traveled the country promoting educational causes.
context_section_description: In Greensboro, North Carolina, the auditorium at UNC Greensboro, as well as a street, a neighborhood, and a middle school were all named for him. Dormitories at UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University campuses were named after him, although ECU decided to rename the dorm in 2015. UNC-Chapel Hill followed suit in 2020. In Pikeville, North Carolina, there is a high school named after him as well. There is an Aycock Elementary School in Henderson, and another in Asheville. Aycock High School in Cedar Grove graduated its last class in 1963.
  In 1965, a junior high school in Raleigh, North Carolina was named after him, although it was absorbed into William G. Enloe High School in 1979.
  For most of the 20th century, Aycock was characterized by state historians and politicians as an admirable figure, reflected in the choice to have a statue of him as one of the two submitted by the state to the National Statuary Hall Collection. In recent years, that viewpoint has been challenged:
  Often overlooked was Aycock's role as a leading spokesman in the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900, which were marked by widespread violence, voter intimidation, voter fraud and even a coup d'état of the government of Wilmington....  The campaigns had far-reaching consequences: Blacks were removed from the voter rolls based on literacy tests, Jim Crow customs were encoded into law, and the Democratic Party controlled Tar Heel politics for two-thirds of the 20th century.
  In 2011, the N.C. Democratic Party dropped Aycock's name from its annual fundraiser after calls from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers brought attention to Aycock's white supremacy ties. Aycock had been included in the fundraiser's name since 1960.
  On June 17, 2014, Duke University removed his name from a residence hall.
  On February 20, 2015, East Carolina University trustees voted to remove Aycock's name from a residence hall after a months-long debate with faculty, students, staff and alumni. The trustees directed the university to represent Aycock's name in another campus location, where founders and other university supporters would be recognized.
  As of early 2015, UNC Greensboro was also reviewing proposals to remove Aycock's name from campus buildings. On February 18, 2016, UNCG's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to remove his name from the auditorium.
  On August 25, 2015, the Guilford County school board voted 9–2 to rename Aycock Middle School in Greensboro, dropping the Aycock name 
  On August 15, 2017, the Greensboro City Council voted to rename the Aycock Historic District, which included the formerly named Aycock Middle School (now Swann Middle School) to Dunleath Historic District.
  On February 28, 2018, the governor of North Carolina requested from the Architect of the Capitol replacement of Aycock's statue with one of evangelist Billy Graham, pursuant to legislation signed in 2015.  The statue will be replaced once sufficient private funds for Graham's statue are raised.
  On April 24, 2018, Greensboro City Council unanimously voted to rename North and South Aycock Street, which runs from West Florida Street to Wendover Avenue, to North and South Josephine Boyd Street after Josephine Boyd, the first Black student to attend the all-white Greensboro High School (now Grimsley High School) in 1957.
caption: Memorial to Aycock at the North Carolina State Capitol
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