Morrison Correctional to be renamed due to namesake’s racist history, state says

HOFFMAN — Morrison Correctional Institution, along with three other prisons and one addiction treatment facility across North Carolina, will be renamed following a Department of Public Safety review of the historical context behind the names of all of its buildings in an effort to be more culturally sensitive.

Four of the names being changed were due to the “race-related actions” of those they were named after, and one prison’s name will be changed because DPS found that it used to be a plantation that relied on slave labor.

Effective Oct. 4, Morrison Correctional will be called Richmond Correctional Institution, DPS announced Thursday. The state cited the affiliations of the prison’s namesake, former Gov. Cameron Morrison, who according to DPS “was a leader of the ‘Red Shirts,’ a violent, post-Civil War organization that promoted white supremacy.”

Morrison gave the featured address at the dedication of the Confederate monument that used to be on Harrington Square, according to a historical record compiled by the University of North Carolina, before it was removed in summer 2020. Morrison was also a part of the white supremacist-led Wilmington insurrection of 1898 which sought to take back power from black elected officials. Morrison was later elected governor after a campaign that employed race-baiting tactics, according to the News & Observer.

Prisons are owned and operated by the state.

The review involved researching the background of the names of 1,893 buildings owned or operated by DPS, and found that these five facilities “should be changed in sensitivity to the cultural legacy issues that have been part of the national conversation in recent years.”

“These changes are being made to better reflect the diversity of modern-day society,” said Todd Ishee, Commissioner of Prisons in a press release. “In this day and age, it is unacceptable to maintain facility names with negative historical connotations.”

The other name changes are:

• Caledonia Correctional Institution in Tillery will become Roanoke River Correctional Institution. The state found that Caledonia Correctional was used as an antebellum plantation, where crops were grown and harvested with slave labor.

• Polk Correctional Institution in Butner will become Granville Correctional Institution. It was named for William Polk, a Revolutionary War officer who owned slaves.

• Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women in Black Mountain will become Western Correctional Center for Women. DPS found that its former name referred to the construction of the Swannanoa Tunnel in Asheville, which “appears to have resulted in the deaths of numerous Black offender-laborers in the late 1800s.”

• DART Cherry residential treatment facility in Goldsboro will become DART Center. This facility was named after former Gov. Gregg Cherry, who pushed the Democratic Party to drop civil rights issues from the party platform in the 1940s, according to DPS.

The staff at these facilities had input on choosing the new names, according to DPS.

“It was important to me that the staff have a say in the names of the places they work, and they preferred names with local community significance,” Ishee said. “I strongly believe they should not have to work in facilities named to honor those who may have oppressed their ancestors.”