CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WTVD) -- Old racially charged photos from the University of North Carolina's 1979 yearbook that surfaced on social media sent shockwaves through the Chapel Hill campus Thursday.

By Elaina Athans
Thursday, February 07, 2019 06:35PM

UNC fraternity members were clearly hamming it up and having fun posing for a depicted lynching in yearbook photos from 1979. A shot shows one white fraternity member in blackface and two others wearing Ku Klux Klan garb.

The students were members of Chi Phi Fraternity, and in one of the images, a noose was tied around the neck of a student in blackface while a rope was hanging from a chandelier. Chi Phi was established at UNC before the Civil War and it is still around today. The organization's white frat house sits prominently on Columbia Street.

The national organization is responding to the photos.

"We strongly denounce the behavior and sentiments displayed in these images. Bigotry is not welcome in our Fraternity," said Chi Phi Executive Director Michael Azarian.

"We were disheartened by that," said UNC-Chapel Hill Interim Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz.
"That's a horrific part of our past, one that I think has no place then or now in our university system," said UNC System Interim President Dr. William Roper.

** Read full article: Horrific part of our past: 1979 UNC Yearbook photos depicts blackface KKK