Ghosts in the Stadium: How four iconic Carolina football stadiums buried Black history

Have you ever wondered what's buried beneath your favorite football stadium?

Thousands of roaring fans have cheered in stadiums like Carter-Finley or pounded their feet on the bleachers at a Panthers game in Charlotte – never knowing the complex history hidden by each of these sites.

Some football stadiums cover entire cemeteries that thousands have walked past – or parked on top of – without even realizing. One famous stadium shares the namesake of a man who played a major role in the Wilmington Massacre, in which dozens of Black men were shot down in the streets. Another stadium blankets the site of a brutal lynching. Multiple stadiums were built right over top historically Black communities in two major North Carolina cities.

Our Ghosts in the Stadium documentary and web series digs into the unknown past of four iconic football stadiums in the Carolinas – Kenan Stadium at UNC, Carter-Finley at NC State, Memorial Stadium at Clemson and Bank of America in Charlotte – and their links to the painful history of race relations in the South.

1. Kenan Stadium – 'Killed dozens:' Name linked with lost history of the Wilmington Massacre

Kenan Memorial Stadium at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is linked with a history that was hidden for decades: The Wilmington Massacre.

Until recently, most people had never heard of the time a group of white men stormed into Wilmington, slaughtering Black men, burning Black-owned businesses and – for the only time in American history – overthrowing an actual city government.

It happened right here in North Carolina. Newspapers spoke of Black families hiding in the woods, trying to preserve their lives.

"It was a coup. It was basically a massacre of Black people at the hands of well-armed white supremacists," said David Zucchino, author of Wilmington's Lie, which documents the coup of 1898.

One of the major players in the massacre: William Rand Kenan, Sr., namesake of Kenan Stadium at UNC.

Kenan commanded a rapid-fire 'gun wagon' to slaughter Black men

The white merchants had bought a rapid-fire gun, an early version of a machine gun that fired 420 rounds a minute. They mounted it on a wagon drawn by a horse, creating a terrifying weapon to kill and intimidate Black men.

"Kenan himself was commander of a gun wagon," said Zucchino. "They rolled it through the streets during the day."

Zucchino found records showing the gun crew opened fire on a crowd of Black men and killed an estimated 25 people. In all, historians estimate at least 60 Black men were killed, but it's possible over 100 died. Some crawled under houses after being shot and died there.

"Not all the bodies were recovered," said Zucchino.

Wilmington was targeted for a coup because it was one of the most successfully integrated cities in North Carolina after the Civil War, with a strong Black middle class.

"The coup was celebrated openly," said Zucchino. "There were celebrations in Raleigh afterwards. It was seen as this momentous event that brought white men back into positions of power and completely eliminated Black men from from voting and from politics."

Kenan's name on a stadium where Black students play football

Today, Kenan's name is emblazoned on a stadium where Black students play football and build the foundations of successful careers in sports.

According to William Sturkey, a former associate professor of history at UNC, Kenan was seen for decades as a symbol of a courageous soldier, a hero.

"One of the problems with William Kenan's memory is that the most consequential thing that he ever did has been the very thing that's been left out," said Sturkey.

He says the next generation softened the story of the Wilmington Massacre, painting it as a necessary evil and writing that there were problems within the Black community that had to be dealt with.

"His son even cast a shadow of doubt on whether or not his father was even there," said Sturkey. "But of course we have the picture of him on the wagon with the gun."

So when Kenan's son, William Rand Kenan Jr. donated money for the stadium and asked to have it named after his father, the university agreed.

"I think it's important to realize when he named the stadium after his father, he never imagined that Black people would be playing there," said Sturkey. "(It was) just completely unbelievable to him."

But within a generation, the university had de-segregated, and more and more Black students began playing football for UNC – playing beneath the namesake of a man who had openly slaughtered Black men in Wilmington.

"But of course, that was all swept under the rug for a long time," said Sturkey.

But all the true history was waiting right there in the school's archives, just a few steps away from the stadium itself, waiting to be discovered.

The truth comes out about Kenan's history

For many years, the history of the Wilmington Massacre was relatively unknown. However, in 2018 NBC Sports Writer Craig Calcaterra uncovered the connection between Kenan Stadium's namesake and the massacre.

In response, UNC's newspaper The Daily Tar Heel also helped spread the word to students.

The university couldn't rename the stadium due to a moratorium against renaming buildings.

"But at the same time, young Black men who are essential to the football program may not want to go play in a stadium named for this guy that went around killing young Black men a few generations ago," said Sturkey.

In response, the university chose to keep the name Kenan Stadium, but re-dedicate it from the father to the son.

Zucchino says he would love to see a marker of plaque that gives the entire background story.

"Otherwise people will just walk by and say, well, there's Keenan Stadium. They will have no idea what the history was."

Sturkey agrees that, more than a renaming or a re-dedication, the real history should just become part of the regular conversation. It should be common knowledge.

"I think it's actually harder to keep a name and teach the real history than it is just to change the name and take down the plaques," said Sturkey.

Should this painful history serve to divide North Carolinians?

"No," said WRAL Sports Anchor Chris Lea, whose curiosity led the WRAL Documentary team to produce the 'Ghosts in the Stadium' documentary. Lea has historic roots in North Carolina himself – with ancestors who were enslaved in this very state.

"Knowing real, local American history that helped shape our communities will help us understand and empathize with each other, while also starting a healing process for everyone to move forward with."

2. Carter-Finley Stadium – 'Graves by gate 6:' Built over lost graves of enslaved men and women

Imagine walking past a lost burial ground for formerly enslaved men and women every time you went to see a football game.

If you've been to a football game at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, you don't have to imagine it: It's happened.

For decades, thousands of football fans and players alike unknowingly walked past the unmarked graves of 12 formerly enslaved people. The grave sites were actually part of a broader piece of lost history: Remnants of an old 1800s freedman's village named Lincolnville, which was one of 13 villages built along the outskirts of Raleigh by men and women freed from slavery in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

Today, many locals have never heard of the lost community of Lincolnville – and all but two of the original freedman's villages have been wiped from the map of Raleigh.

However. the remains discovered in the lost graves helped tell the story of this lost community.

Grave sites full of glass, bones and remnants from 1850s

In 2015, North Carolina State University decided to exhume 12 graves from the burial ground, which was obscured in a wooded area near Carter-Finley Stadium's Gate 6.

According to a report on Find A Grave, in the graves were in very poor condition, and the stadium's tailgating areas were "encroaching on the actual graves."

Researchers who excavated the site found bones, skulls, bits of glass and coffin handles just outside the stadium. They used special tools to detect areas where soil was looser and could have been part of a grave. The graves were carefully excavated to include soil that could have once been part of a body.

The contents of each grave were relocated to Historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh.

"We were told that a cemetery was coming from NC State," said Oakwood Cemetery's executive director Robin Simonton. "They simply said it was to expand the Carter-Finley complex."

Oakwood took delivery of pine boxes, roughly 20 inches square and without lids. According to an article in NC State's newspaper The Technician, each box contained shards of broken glass, meaning the coffins were likely covered with glass – a style that predated the Civil War. This told historians some of the grave sites were likely from the 1850s or 1860s, prior to the emancipation.

Others, however, were from the early 1900s – some being residents of the freedman's village of Lincolnville.

In an interview with The Technician in 2015, Simonton said there were "a lot of skulls and a lot of jaws."

The 12 graves were interred at Historic Oakwood Cemetery, where they can be seen today.

"We put them back in that same order they were in, in their original cemetery," said Simonton.

Around a year after Oakwood Cemetery received the graves, a family member arrived saying they believed a loved one had been relocated to Oakwood.

They gave the name of a woman buried in one of those unmarked graves: Emmaline White.

"We then looked up and got her death certificate to see more about her," said Simonton.

She died in 1922. She was a formerly enslaved woman. She had died in Lincolnville.

"[Learning her story] made us that much more motivated to find out as much about her as possible," said Simonton. "We went through the census records and tried to do her genealogy so we could tell her story."

Simonton said Emmaline White has become representative of the community of 12 people buried here.

There's still a lot unknown about the people who were buried at Gate 6. But now, every time Simonton gives a tour of the cemetery, she makes sure to tell Emmaline's story.

"I think now more than ever, we know as a community that these stories of the formerly enslaved are often lost – and it's our obligation to try to tell them," she said.

Vanished neighborhoods: What happened to Lincolnville?

In the years after the Civil War, men and women freed from nearby plantations formed 13 freedman's villages around Raleigh. The city was flooded with over 4,000 'freedmen,' who were starting out life in freedom with no jobs, no homes and no money.

"When the war ended and slavery ended, African Americans were free for the first time," said Carmen Cauthen, a historian and author who specializes in Raleigh's Black history, who recently published a book called Historical Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh.

"They were freed with no money, no anything. And people came from all parts of the state of North Carolina to Raleigh because it was the capital city."

Cauthen says there were several communities known as freedman's villages that were created around what were then the city limits. One of them was Lincolnville.

Citizens of freedman's villages made up around half of Raleigh's entire population – and they pulled together to build homes, churches, schools and businesses.

Lincolnville was among the first four freedman's villages, created even before the Reconstruction began. The others were Method, Oberlin and Brooklyn.

Today, the landscape of Raleigh shows very few hints of those freedman's villages. However, just across a wooded lot from Carter-Finley stands the old Lincolnville AME church. Down the road from there is the freedman's village of Method, where an historic church and Rosenwald school remain standing today.

"[Freed men and women] built a church, and they had a pastor. That's still true today," said Cauthen. "Lincolnville AME church started here, and the community of Lincolnville grew around it."

Today, there are very few remnants of these historic neighborhoods. In Charlotte, the Carolina Panthers' home stadium is also built over a Black community that was destroyed.

"Why are those lands okay to build on, to create entertainment spaces?" asked Cauthen.

The land in Lincolnville was eventually sold to the state, and the residents were told that a prison would be there. However, after the land was sold, the plans changed: The prison was never built and, instead, years later, a football stadium was built.

3. Panthers Stadium – Built over historic Black community, site of horrific lynching

Tens of thousands of people visit Bank of America stadium to watch the Carolina Panthers play football each year – never realizing they are walking on top of lost remnants of a once-thriving Black neighborhood established in the aftermath of the Civil War.

The stadium itself is built directly atop a relic of segregated healthcare: Good Samaritan Hospital, the first private hospital built in North Carolina to serve Black patients. Built in 1891, this historic hospital was one of the oldest of its kind in the United States.

It was also the site of one of the "most horrific racial incidents in Charlotte's history," according to Dan Aldridge, professor of History and Africana Studies at Davidson College.

A mob of 30 to 35 armed, white men invaded the hospital, dragging a man out of the hospital and into the streets – and shooting him dead in front of the building.

Urban renewal: Panthers stadium buries lost Black neighborhood

The concept of "urban renewal" destroyed Black neighborhoods, communities, businesses and homes all across North Carolina, especially between 1949 and 1974.

Durham, for example, once had a prominent Black Wall Street, where Black businesses flourished; however, the historic community was almost completely destroyed by construction of the Durham Freeway.

Likewise, Raleigh once had 13 historic Freedmen's Villages, built entirely by men and women freed from slavery in the aftermath of emancipation. Today, only two are remaining, and Oberlin Village, the largest one, was cut in half by the construction of Wade Avenue.

Similarly, Charlotte's Brooklyn community was built by men and women freed from slavery in the late 1800s. Like many Black communities around the state, it was forced into an awful geographical location – on low-lying land where flooding, sewage and sanitation issues made life hazardous.

According to history in the Charlotte Library, the Brooklyn area was first identified on maps as 'Logtown' in the late 1800s – a name that matches closely with titles given to similar freedmen villages in the Triangle area, which were often called slang names like 'Slabtown' or 'Save Rent' due to their inexpensive homes.

In the 1900s, the area became known as Brooklyn, "a name that would become synonymous with the Black community until urban renewal."

"It's a tragedy that so many stadiums were built on sites that were once Black communities," said Aldridge. "They're poor neighborhoods. They're struggling neighborhoods. I won't romanticize them by claiming they're all like Black Wall Street, but they were people's homes and people's communities, and they were taken from them."

Many historically significant Black sites were lost in urban renewal; likewise, many Black communities were forced to build in geographically unfit areas, making growing wealth and property more difficult – and more easily lost over time.

At its peak, Brooklyn was home to:

• Charlotte's first Black public school
• Charlotte's only Black high school
• The city's first free library for Black patrons
• The first companies to offer white collar jobs to Black workers
• The first private hospital for Black citizens in Charlotte

"This is an important part of what the past was actually like," said Aldridge. "You know, what sort of led to the society we have now – in good ways and bad."

Panthers football field sits on the site of a historic lynching

Today, football players run up and down the Bank of America field for the amusement of thousands of cheering fans. However, in 1913, over a century ago, that same land had a very different story.

"The hospital is the most notable thing on the site of the Bank of America Stadium," said Aldridge. "So at the one hand, it's a symbol of Black achievement and pride. We have a hospital! But it's also emblematic of racial health disparities. It's a symbol of both shame and pride."

Joe McNeely, a 22-year-old Black man who was being treated inside the hospital, was dragged out into the street by an angry mob of around 35 armed white men and killed.

"He was a laborer who lived right here in Charlotte," said Krista Terrell, who is on the steering committee for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Remembrance Project.

McNeely got into an altercation with a white police officer. Gunshots were fired, and McNeely was accused of shooting and wounding a police officer in the line of duty.

McNeely, who was also shot and injured during the altercation, was arrested and held inside Good Samaritan Hospital.

"He was not a patient there. He was chained to his bed and was guarded by two police officers," said Terrell.

A mob of angry men stormed the hospital and shot McNeely to death right in front of the building.

"All of this takes place on what is now the site of the Bank of American Stadium," said Aldridge.

A group of jurors deliberated for three days, but in the end no one was ever held accountable for McNeely's lynching.

Both Terrell and Aldridge believe the history of Brooklyn, the hospital and McNeely should not be forgotten.

"I don't think you should – you can't tear down the stadium because of it – but you should acknowledge what happened on the site and the presence of Good Samaritan Hospital and this whole Black community on the site," said Aldridge.

In recent years, Terrell has worked with volunteers to memorialize McNeely and the site of the lynching.

"We went onto the field of Bank of America Stadium and tried to get as close to the proximity of where Mr. Joe McNeely was lynched," she said. "We had individuals and young men that dug into the soil and placed that soil into the empty jar. It was very solemn, very quiet, very respectful."

A historical marker has also been created and will be installed at Bank of America Stadium alongside the Good Samaritan Hospital marker.

4. Clemson Stadium – 'Built on their graves:' Fans tailgated on top of 500 unmarked graves at Clemson football stadium

For many years, football fans at Clemson University parked their vehicles and tailgated right in the middle of a burial ground – many never even realizing there were hundreds of people buried right beneath their feet.

More than 500 unmarked graves dating back to the early 1800s serve as the final resting place for enslaved men and women – many who built the university itself, and before that, the plantation on which the school sits.

Other people buried in the graves are believed to have been Black sharecroppers, domestic workers, tenant farmers, convicted laborers and wage workers and their families.

Some of the graves were overbuilt by the marked graves of white people who had worked at the university.

In 2015, unmarked graves belonging to enslaved men and women were discovered at Carter-Finley Stadium at NC State University. Similar to Clemson, the graves were hidden on a wooded hillside, near a gate that had also been used for parking and tailgating.

Before Clemson University there was Fort Hill Plantation

Many universities in the south have connections to slavery –– whether built using enslaved labor or using money from wealthy plantation owners. Today, many universities and historians are working to ensure the names of the people who built the buildings and worked the land are not forgotten.

Clemson University has put together a timeline of the land's history – including a list of known people who were enslaved on the plantation.

Long before the university was built, the Calhoun family established Fort Hill Plantation along the tract of land that would eventually become Clemson University. According to the university's timeline, more than 139 people were enslaved on that plantation.

Historians believe the hill on campus that is now known as 'Cemetery Hill' first became a burial site when the Calhoun family's firstborn son died and was buried there. Over the passing decades, more family members were buried in proximity to these initial plots.

Meanwhile, research shows enslaved families on the plantation also buried their loved ones on Cemetery Hill –– but closer to the bottom, rather than the top. While the white families had permanent markers, the Black families often were not afforded the same opportunity. Instead, historians note many graves for enslaved men and women have been lost over the generations because their markers were often something more simple and easily available – perhaps a basic field stone or a plank of wood, something that could easily be moved or destroyed. Since most enslaved individuals were not taught to write, they could not memorialize a loved one's name on their headstone. In time, many of these graves – and names – have been lost to time.

Clemson University was founded on the plantation in 1889 at the request of Thomas Green Clemson, who had married into the Calhoun family. After the school had been around for around 30 years, another cemetery was established near the Calhoun family cemetery – this one specifically to honor faculty of Clemson and their immediate families. It became known as Woodland Cemetery.

According to a historic document from the school, in 1922 the Board of Trustees established a cemetery for "any member of the Caucasian race who is a regular employee or who dies in the employment of the college, provided he has been in the service of the college for a period of time exceeding three years.”

As far back as 1946, the college reports knowing about at least 200 to 250 of the graves belonging to enslaved men and women and convicted laborers. The college Buildings and Grounds Committee recommended placing a permanent marker on the site at that time, but it didn't happen.

Historic cemetery used as a parking area

It took nearly 75 years before those burial grounds would finally be marked. Today, a small placard marks the cemetery, alerting visitors to the history: African American Cemetery Site.

Between 2020 and 2021, these burial sites were formally recognized and marked with flags, as researchers began the process of working to identify the hundreds of individuals who lived and worked on that land.

"People kind of saw the cemetery more as a park, rather than a cemetery," said Rhonda Robinson Thomas, Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University.

She says Clemson allowed parking within the cemetery – parking that raised a lot of money for the school.

"They had paid parking, and so quite a bit of money was raised. It was treated as a funding resource for athletics," she said. "It was also treated as a place to party before the games."

Over 500 unmarked graves 'hidden' in the cemetery

Research from the 1940s shows historians had only discovered around 200 graves belonging to the Black families that had toiled on the land. However, modern equipment discovered there were many more burial sites 'hidden' in the cemetery.

"A decision was made to survey the entire cemetery," said Thomas. "After the ground-penetrating radar was completed, over 500 anomalies were (found that are) believed to be unmarked (graves). Burials were found throughout the entire cemetery."

Researchers have linked those to enslaved people, sharecroppers and tenant farmers who had worked on the land.

"Once we learned the history, we had a decision to make," she said.

What did the school decide to do?

"They decided to provide the resources that we needed to actually document the history of the cemetery for the first time. They decided to beautify the cemetery by putting in new pathways that would really signal to the world that this is a sacred site," said Thomas.

Today, Clemson University has documented its history and strives to tell and honor the stories of all the people that lived and worked on that land.

"As long as there's a Clemson University, the cemetery will be cared for," said Thomas.

'Not shocking' to see so much Black history buried by development

It can be haunting to envision all of the once-thriving Black communities that have been buried and nearly erased by history – but Aldridge says it isn't shocking to learn how much Black history has been erased.

"Exploitation of the poor and powerless is something that doesn't shock you – if you read history," he said.

Carmen Cauthen, historian and author specializing in Black history, wrapped it up best:

"It makes you wonder, how much of America – the parts that we prize the most – were not only built on the backs of the people who built them, but literally were built on their graves, on the places where they died."

Podcast: Chris Lea shares his personal insights on Ghosts in the Stadium

Listen to Chris Lea explain how he became fascinated with the history hidden by football stadiums across NC and SC.