Sonja Haynes Stone (1938-1991) and the Stone Center for Black History and Culture
The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black History and Culture opened in 2004. The building houses classrooms, a library, an art gallery and museum, an auditorium, a dance studio, and space for visiting scholars/artists. Sonja Haynes Stone was head of Carolina’s African and Afro-American Studies curriculum from 1974 to 1979 and the leading advocate for a free-standing black cultural center. Born in Chicago in 1938, she was graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and earned her doctorate from Northwestern University. She came to UNC in 1974 as an assistant professor and was named an associate professor in 1984. Stone was the founder and former director of the Southeastern Black Press Institute, and served on numerous committees related to the black rights movement, about which she wrote extensively. Stone was the adviser to the Black Student Movement from 1974 to 1980 and was active in promoting the minority presence on campus and expanding the Afro-American studies curriculum.