RALEIGH, N.C. – The City Council is facing an important decision in the ongoing debate of history versus development. Shaw University – the first historically Black university in the South — has filed a rezoning request for 17 properties.

What You Need To Know

  • Shaw University is the South’s first historically Black university

  • The school has filed a rezoning request that would raise height restrictions on buildings

  • Alumni are concerned about the fate of historic buildings on campus

Established in 1865, Shaw University now sits in the heart of downtown Raleigh. University leaders are seeking permission from the city to update its centuries-old infrastructure.

Eugene Myrick looks at Shaw University's campus. (Spectrum News 1/Rachel Boyd)

If the rezoning request is approved, it would raise the height limit to 40 stories on some parcels. But a group of alumni is concerned the plans endanger many of the historic buildings on campus. 

“I think anybody that attended an HBCU needs to be concerned because if they could totally wipe out our history, then what school is next?” Eugene Myrick, one of the organizers of the Save Our Shaw movement, said. 

The master plan for redeveloping Shaw proposes a public walkway and potentially a street through the heart of campus. It would run where the bell tower, founder’s gravesite and Debnam Hall stand next to Estey Hall – the nation’s first educational building for Black women on a university campus. 

An aerial view of Estey Hall, the oldest building on Shaw's campus. (Spectrum News 1/Rachel Boyd)

“If you're going to put that there, then we’re losing not just Black history, but American history,” Myrick said. 

The alumni have put together a petition called Save Our Shaw, hoping to save the university from what they say will be its demise, rather than development. 

“I'm trying to educate alum because most people that graduate, they go on with their lives and they don't — other than homecoming — they don't really stay attached,” Myrick said. 

Myrick says they have collected over 1,000 signatures on a petition against the rezoning. The university has said that the rezoning “envisions and reimagines the campus and its facilities to model a new era of HBCU innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurship.”

The Raleigh Historic Development Commission voted against the rezoning request 9-2, but the Planning Commission approved it with only one dissenting vote. The Raleigh City Council now has the final say. 

“We're not against development, but we're against wiping out our history,” Myrick said. 

Leonard Medical School and Tyler Hall — two historical buildings on Shaw University's campus in downtown Raleigh. (Spectrum News 1/Rachel Boyd)