University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

significant way to demonstrate power. Real power is found when people unite in a common cause. Standing for something together is very powerful. Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, and she organized a vigil when three Muslim students were shot dead in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She “went to the vigil and saw thousands of people who were sad and confused.” When the thousands of people all gathered…

Spelman College was never my “dream school” or one of the schools I planned on attending. After getting rejected from my top two schools, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I began to lose all hope. I became very lost, I didn’t know where I was going to school because I wasn’t really interested in any other schools. My friend Michael, who was planning to attend Morehouse College, was the one who motivated me to apply to Spelman. At first I was…

They speak of justice as the basis of political organization: in the Declaration of Independence states that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed” (paragraph 2), and the Preamble lists, among the reasons for “ordain[ing] and establish[ing] this Constitution for the United States of America,” “to ... establish Justice.” The U.S. government would thus be held accountable not in just a practical way—via elections, whereby officials who…

Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis. By Jennifer Brier. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 289 pp. $39.95) In Infectious Ideas, Jennifer Brier effectively argues that the AIDS epidemic had a deep effect on the American political landscape. Viewing modern history from the perspective of the AIDS crisis, she provides new understandings of the complex political and social trends of the 1980s era. She sets the tone for the book in her first paragraph…

While verse was economically marginal in the early nineteenth century, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) became the first American poet who could live off his royalties (Gioia 74). He was also the first poet of the New World to achieve an international fame; his reputation reached Europe and even Latin America (64). Devoted to the creation of a native literature, Longfellow committed himself to developing an American poetic diction. In “Our Native Writers” (1825), his graduation address,…

The Song of History: “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” The song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is a political account and cultural manifesto of the final days of the Civil War in America. It is a story told from the view of a deprived white farmer in Tennessee. Although he has witnessed firsthand by soldiers from the Union and lost his sibling to the war, he soldiers on and lives through the “beautiful sadness” of the Southern states that inspired the creation of the song. The song…

actually being in the north they weren’t totally welcomed with open arms. “Yet when victims make their escape from this wild beast of Slavery, northerners consent to act the part of bloodhounds, and hunt the poor fugitive back into his den, ‘full of dead men 's bones, and all uncleanness.’” (Jacobs 56) The perception that freedom awaits in the north for blacks had been manipulated here by white slave owners who are attempting at creating this undesirable image of the north. The fact is that even…

I researched Latino authors with a drive to identify someone who resonated with my journey, my story. I came to a deep appreciation for Sandra Cisneros’s Chicano identity, her life, and her personal experiences that lead her down a path that gave way to her distinct voice so many around the world can embrace and connect with. Her voice is her own and through her writing encourages the reader to explore their voice and contribution from their own life’s journey. You will be intrigued with…

Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers lived in time vastly different than our own. It was a time when some human beings were viewed as property and women were not considered equal to men. Yet, a quote emerged during this time period in our most American of documents, the Declaration of Independence, ironically stating that “all men were created equal”. Now, assuming that the all-encompassing use of “men” in that statement included all human beings, is that beacon of hope for fair…

Chalcone and Pyrylium Syntheses and Analyses Done by: Natalie Almond & Sophie Troyer in approved collaboration Introduction Photoredox catalysis uses light to excite the catalytic compounds, producing an effective oxidizing agent.1 The oxidizing agent can remove an electron from the desired compound for reaction, making it easier to synthesize molecules.1 One example of the utility of photoredox catalysis is the “production of lignan cyclobutanes,” which have many important pharmaceutical…