PARKING UPDATE: Via UNC, parking for the event will be available in the Rams Head Parking Deck on campus on Ridge Road (at the east end zone of the football stadium), and there will be a shuttle running to/from the Student Union and that parking deck from 3 to 6 p.m. The shuttle will pick up/drop off at the bus pull-outs located on Ridge Road (just outside of the parking deck) and on South Road by the Student Union.
A parking pass will be available on the shuttle to give the attendant when you exit the parking deck.
THE JAMES CATES MEMORIAL will be dedicated on UNC’s campus during a ceremony at the Pit on Monday, November 21 at 4 p.m. The date will be the 52nd anniversary of the racial murder of James Lewis Cates Jr., and the memorial will be installed at the Pit near the site of his stabbing outside the Student Union in 1970.
All are invited to attend as his family and community mark this long overdue remembrance. Please come out in solidarity and support. Everyone is also encouraged to leave flowers at the memorial all day Monday, and the Pit will be lit from dusk to dawn for Cates.
Speakers at the dedication will include James Cates family members Congresswoman-elect Valerie Foushee and Pastor Nate Davis, son of Cates’s close cousin who was working in the Union Snack Bar the night of the murder; as well as UNC Black Student Movement president Julia Clark and student body president Taliajah Vann, both of whom were instrumental in getting a James Cates Memorial at UNC. There will also be a musical performance by Voices of Praise Gospel Choir.
The university announced in August that its Board of Trustees had approved the permanent marker. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a cold case investigation under the Emmett Till Act into the circumstances surrounding Cates’s death. That investigation is still ongoing. Cates, who was 22 at the time of his death, was a lifelong Chapel Hillian. His grandmother, who raised him and with whom he was living in 1970, worked for UNC as a presser at the University Laundry for decades.
On that night in November of 1970, Cates was attending an interracial, all-night dance in the Student Union when a large fight broke out between members of a white biker gang and Black youth outside the Union just after 2 a.m. Amid the ensuing chaos, Cates was stabbed twice and collapsed to the bricks.
Several university and town police officers were on the scene and arrived immediately thereafter, but no ambulance was available. The officers left Cates, bleeding profusely, on the ground for an exceptionally long period of time before finally transporting him to the nearby hospital. Cates died from excessive blood loss soon after getting to the emergency department.
Police let the bikers leave the scene, and the university cleaned the blood from the crime scene without investigation. Three of the bikers were later arrested, and an all-white jury acquitted them of murder following a perfunctory prosecution by the district attorney. No one from the police or university were held accountable either. Outside of the local Black community, the tragedy was quickly forgotten despite marches, firebombings and national news coverage.
James Cates has been referred to as Chapel Hill’s Emmett Till.
The decision by the university to install a permanent memorial for James Cates came after years of advocacy by the family of Mr. Cates, his friends, their community, UNC students and campus groups, and the James Cates Remembrance Coalition. A more thorough timeline of that effort can be found here.
Read more about who James Cates was and his community. Further resources are linked below.
For more information about James Cates:
The James Cates Remembrance Coalition’s proposal to name the UNC Student Stores building for him, endorsed by many dozens of community members, local leaders, and organizations.
A webinar on James Cates featuring his family and friends
An essay for The Assembly by Cates’s cousins Nate Davis and Valerie P. Foushee advocating for James Cates Building, titled, “Say His Name: James Cates”
“Re/Collecting Chapel Hill” podcast episode about James Cates
Video of the 50th anniversary Community Remembrance Walk
Stone Walls at the 50th anniversary, on James Cates’s life and community
Twitter thread about the circumstances of his death
James Cates Memorial dedication Monday
UPDATE: Parking for the event will be available in the Rams Head Parking Deck on campus on Ridge Road (at the east end zone of the football stadium), and there will be a shuttle running to/from the Student Union and that parking deck from 3 to 6 p.m. The shuttle will pick up/drop off at the bus pull-outs located on Ridge Road (just outside of the parking deck) and on South Road by the Student Union.
A parking pass will be available for you on the shuttle to give the attendant when you exit the parking deck.
Sad to miss due to travel out of CH. Thanks a lot for the wonderful work Mike.