Poe Hall

Poe Hall was the second to last building constructed in the Court of North Carolina in 1971. Yeargin Construction Company, Incorporated, were the general contractors and architect firm, Lyles Bissett, Carlisle & Wolfe designed Poe Hall. From the beginning, Poe Hall was a space for innovation and learning. According to the June 1970 issue of the newsletter, Contracting in the Carolinas, Poe Hall had “all modern educational media.” In addition to classrooms and offices, the building contained laboratories, a library, closed circuit televisions in each classroom. These facilities were for the Education Department, Psychology Department, and Guidance and Personnel Services Department. 

Poe Hall was not only a place to teach and study, the building was also a meeting place for clubs and activities. The Psychology Club has been meeting at Poe Hall since 1971. In February 1983, NC State’s Gaming Society held a gaming convention called Tri-Con. The club decorated Poe Hall to look like the Starship from Star Trek and renamed the hall the "United Federation Starship Poe Hall." The convention included lectures about science fiction and science fiction literature and films. The proceeds from the convention went towards the United Cerebral Palsy Developmental Center of Raleigh. Other events and clubs located at Poe Hall were: the Student Social Work Association, the NC Student Legislature, “It’s Time to File”, which was an event to help its participants file their income tax.

Two years before this multipurpose building was completed, Chancellor John Caldwell announced that the building would be called “Clarence Poe Hall.” The Technician, News & Observer, Contracting in the Carolinas, and The Journal all remarked that Clarence Hamilton Poe never attended school, but advocated to improve educational opportunity for all North Carolinians and Southerners. Indeed Poe was never a student, but his mother was a teacher and he was friends with educators such as, E.C. Brooks (NC State’s president 1923-1934) and Edwin Mims (Duke University and UNC English professor). 

Poe’s main connection to NC State was through the journal, The Progressive Farmer and as chair of the NC State Board of Trustees. The Progressive Farmer discussed efficient agricultural techniques and was aimed at a white readership. In 1897, Poe started working for The Progressive Farmer at sixteen years old. Two years later he became editor. During his career he met Walter Page, William Peele, Charles Dabney, and Josephus Daniels. All five men were part of the Watauga Club, which helped create NC State University along with Poe’s boss and founder of The Progressive Farmer, Leonidas Lafayette Polk. Poe became a member of the club in 1902 and president around 1926 until 1950. In 1927, Poe was able to make his own mark in NC State history by becoming the chair of the Board of Trustees Executive Committee. The committee made decisions on topics such as the physical appearance of the campus, the hiring of professors, and the university’s association with outside organizations. Other than Poe’s connections and work with NC State, the hall was also dedicated to him based on his work in education. For example, Poe was a chairmain of the North Carolina Child Labor Committee. The organization tried to decrease work hours, and increase wages and work-age at textile factories so that children could attend school. But, Poe’s interests were also in less humanitarian efforts, such as segregating rural North Carolina. 

As the editor of The Progressive Farmer and someone who grew up among farmers, Poe was interested in improving the lives of farmers, especially small-land-owning, white farmers. One of his methods to achieve this was segregating residential rural neighborhoods. Poe shared and promoted his idea through his journal.  In an August 1915 article titled “Which is the Handicapped Race?”, Poe argued that African Americans “made no important contribution to civilization...no great achievement in science, government or religion.” Therefore, African American farmers’ presence, in his view, impeded white farmers’ prosperity. 

Poe’s cause diminished opportunities for African American farmers. Poe was most concerned with African American farmers owning land and white farmers not owning enough land. Through the state government he pushed for rural segregation in North Carolina’s constitution and supported politicians who also desired segregation. His reform did not pass, but his words invigorated white farmers to violently drive African American landowners off their land. One newspaper in 1915 reported, African American farmers were murdered for “the new crime of land-owning” in two North Carolina counties because of Poe’s actions. Such violence inhibited African American landowners’ ability to grow and likely deterred future African American landowning.

Poe’s racist views were not addressed in the dedication of Poe Hall in April 1971. Reverend Oscar Wooldridge Jr; State Treasurer, Edwin Gill; Dean of the School of Education, Dr. Carl Dolce; Chancellor John Caldwell; UNC Trustee, Victor Bryant; and Education Council President, Brenda Pipkin spoke at the ceremony. Dolce’s speech discussed the arrogance surrounding formal education and argued that the discipline needed to put the individual first and encourage pluralism and equality. In Gill’s speech, he reminisced and praised Poe saying, “I have known many highly educated men in my life, but I know none who were better educated than Dr. Clarence Poe.” 

He himself wrote in 1961 that he strived to “fight for all underdogs.” Although Poe fought for children laborers' rights and small-land-owning, white farmers, he did not fight with African Americans in their mission for prosperity. Poe was a complex and multifaceted man, which makes unpacking his legacy essential.

References

Original Source References

Poe, Clarence Hamilton. My First 80 Years. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963.

Poe, Clarence Hamilton. True Tales of the South at War: How Soldiers Fought and Families Lived, 1861-1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961. 

Poe, Clarence Hamilton. A Southerner in Europe: Being Fourteen Newspaper Letters of Foreign Travel Written With Especial Reference to Southern Conditions. Raleigh: Mutual Publishing Co., 1908.

Poe, Clarence Hamilton. Where Half the World Is Waking Up: The Old and the New in Japan, China, the Philippines, and India, Reported with Especial Reference to American Conditions. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1911. 

Poe, Clarence Hamilton. Farm Life, Problems and Opportunities. Chicago: American Library Association, 1931. 

Poe, Clarence Hamilton. How Farmers Co-operate and Double Profits: First-Hand Reports on All the Leading Forms of Rural Co-operation in the United States and Europe- Stories That Show How Farmers Can Co-operate By Showing How They Have Done It and Are Doing It. New York: Orange Judd, 1915.

North Carolina State University Special Collections Research Center:

Clarence Hamilton Poe Christmas Pamphlet, 1963. MSS00177. 

North Carolina State University, Office of Public Affairs, News Services Records, 1896-2007. UA014.0011 Carton 6, Folder 7.

North Carolina State University, University Archives Reference Collection, University Buildings, Sites, Landmarks Files, 1888-2018. UA050.004 Box 7. 

Technician

Extension Farm-News 

Secondary Source References

Beyond Forty Acres and A Mule: African American Landowning Families Since Reconstruction. Edited by Debra A. Reid and Evan P. Bennett. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012.

"Historical State Timelines: Campus Buildings, Grounds & Landmarks". North Carolina State University Libraries. Accessed September 9, 2019. https://historicalstate.lib.ncsu.edu/timelines/campus-buildings-grounds

Herbin-Triant, Elizabeth A. Threatening Property: Race, Class, and Campaigns to Legislate Jim Crow Neighborhoods. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019.

Hunt, James L. “Progressive Farmer”. NCpedia. NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. 2006. Accessed September 25, 2019. https://www.ncpedia.org/progressive-farmer

Snider, William D. “Watauga Club”. NCpedia. NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. 2006. Accessed September 28, 2019.

White, Monica M. Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019.