History, Land, Racism and the Sale of 200 West Morgan Street

As laid out in detail in “Initial Report: The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina’s History of Institutional Racism (Founding-1960s)” by the Rev. Dr. Rhonda Lee, land, racism, white supremacy and the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina have been intertwined since the beginning. Even before the establishment of the diocese in 1817, Anglicans played a significant role in the colonization of what is now called North Carolina. Anglicans had a part in the theft of land from Indigenous people and the usurpation of their sovereignty. Our first bishop, John Stark Ravenscroft, was a slaveowner, as were a number of other North Carolina Episcopalians. Some of the funds used to establish white Episcopal churches throughout the diocese came from profits earned on land stolen from Indigenous people using the forced labor of enslaved people. Those profits and that wealth have accrued through generations in white churches in ways denied to black churches.

That is true throughout the diocese in general. It also true for the land allocated to our diocesan offices in particular.

As Lee notes in her report,

"The largest plantation in North Carolina, and one of the largest in the United States, was Stagville. Together with the various smaller plantations associated with it, Stagville eventually stretched across 30,000 acres—almost 50 square miles—in what was then Orange County. Before being appropriated by Europeans, archaeological evidence shows that this land was in use by Indigenous people for at least 4,000 years. At Stagville, the Bennehan-Cameron family held almost 1,000 people in slavery in 1865; over the previous two centuries, they had enslaved generations more. The family were prominent Episcopalians."(Page 7)

Duncan Cameron was a member of the Bennehan-Cameron family and owned Stagville Plantation for much of the first half of the 19th century. Cameron was instrumental in the founding of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina and was an active churchman, serving as a lay delegate to Diocesan Convention and a deputy to General Convention. He also proved to be essential to the diocese’s economic well-being.

Again, according to Lee’s report,

"In 1841, Duncan Cameron rescued the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina from financial disaster. Over the previous few years, the diocese had borrowed to buy land and pay other expenses associated with establishing a boys’ school. When the school closed after only a brief period of operation, the diocese owed a total of almost $22,000 to the family from whom it had bought the land, and to the Episcopal Fund which paid the bishop’s salary, and from which the diocese had borrowed. Duncan Cameron stepped in to pay the entire debt, making the diocese solvent once more, and then offered the school buildings and land for the establishment of Saint Mary’s School for girls. Saint Mary’s remained an all-white institution until 1971, when a student from Ethiopia attended. The first African American student attended from 1974 through 1976; the first African American student to graduate from Saint Mary’s High School did so in 1981." (Page 8)

Prior to its location in downtown Raleigh, the Diocese of North Carolina was located on St. Alban's Road in the North Hills area. The sale of the property at St. Alban’s Road allowed the diocese to purchase the property at 200 West Morgan Street in downtown Raleigh in 2005. The downtown property was sold in 2023, generating a profit of $5.78 million. That profit in 2023 was made possible in no small part by Duncan Cameron’s investment in 1841. The money generated by the sale of the diocesan office building at 200 West Morgan Street is inextricably linked to money generated from the forced labor of enslaved people working stolen land.

No single profit sharing is sufficient to the cause of making reparation for the wrongs done to enslaved people and their descendants in the Diocese of North Carolina, nor can that amount compensate for the inequity perpetuated across generations. But the process by which the money from the sale of 200 West Morgan Street is allocated, and recognizing the authority of the people descended from those from whom the wealth was derived and directly impacted by ongoing systemic racism, for designing that process and making those allocations, might be a right beginning.