Raleigh Developers Looking To Force Merger Between Shaw & St. Augustine’s, Says Trustee

A trustee for St. Augustine’s University dropped a bombshell this week, revealing that Raleigh developers are looking to force a merger with fellow Raleigh HBCU Shaw University . The trustee says this is a calculated effort to seize the 30 acres of land that Shaw has sat on since its founding in 1865, in the heart of Downtown Raleigh.

As reported by HBCU Gameday , Brian Boulware , Chairman of St. Aug’s Board of Trustees, cited a dinner meeting in his four-page letter released on June 17. The meeting involved himself, St. Aug’s Interim President Marcus Burgess and “executives of another local higher education institution,” along with a local TV station owner and the former editor of a local newspaper.

Although Boulware did not mention names in letter, WRAL has identified the individuals as the following:

• Local developer Smedes York
• Orage Quarles , former publisher of News and Observer
• Jim Goodmon , CEO of WRAL’s parent company, Capitol Broadcasting

According to the letter, Goodmon said:

“Let’s get to the bottom of this… Raleigh doesn’t need two black universities. We need the two of them to merge. I don’t care what you call it. However, we need them both on SAU’s property because we need downtown land to expand the development footprint.”

The developer continued to press the issue, according to Boulware, saying that the Raleigh business community felt the same way.

“You have no leverage in the situation. You need to consider this an option.”

Boulware says the representative for Shaw, believed to be the President, didn’t say much other than she was “going to reserve judgement.”

The letter states that after the proposal was rejected, “a targeted campaign against SAU ensued.”

ALUMNI REACTIONS

Alumni of both schools had passionate reactions to the letter’s circulation.

“We are Raleigh history. To merge both universities, we’d lose that,” St. Aug’s alumna Demetria Buie told ABC11 . “Everyone knows that Saint Augustine’s and Shaw University are land rich. To have that discussion regarding land, is not farfetched.”

“Nobody said that Meredith and Campbell need to merge, but Shaw and Saint Aug need to merge,” said Save Our Shaw spokesperson Eugene Myrick to WRAL. “This narrative that we’re just so Black and so poor, I’m sick of it. We have to do better. We need better management at these HBCUs to do that.”

Added St. Aug alumna Karole Kimble: “The exact same value that they see in the land that Shaw is on, for instance, or the land that Saint Aug occupies, they should see the same merit in their legacy,” Kimble said.

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