Abstract
This article examines the crucial roles Black people played in the development of Western Carolina University (WCU) in the mountains of Southern Appalachia, and the university's failure to fully acknowledge the contributions those people have made. After introducing some relevant oral history projects, we focus on the history of the WCU land. We first describe the Indigenous dispossession by which the white Rogers family acquired the land in Cullowhee, North Carolina. We then turn to Harriet, an African American woman enslaved by David Rogers, Sr., considering how her and her children's labor shaped the property he eventually transferred to the university. The article subsequently traces the lives of several of Harriet's descendants, and their contributions to the university's growth. We also consider how WCU's expansion relied on the appropriation of land upon which a crucial Black AME Zion Church sat. We contend that, as with the prior Cherokee dispossession, WCU has yet to fully acknowledge the contributions of Black people to its development. The contributions of local Black community members should be recognized especially in light of the university's reliance on its mountain location as the basis of its “brand identity.”
