North Carolina Central University

North Carolina Central University occupies a campus about a mile southeast of downtown Durham. The nominated area holds eleven buildings, centered on the Clyde R. Hoey Administration Building and a sunken courtyard. Most are brick Georgian Revival structures with slate hipped roofs and limestone details. The Durham firm of Atwood and Nash designed Hoey, Dunn and Shepard halls in 1929 and 1930. Five more buildings followed in the late 1930s under a Public Works Administration program, echoing those earlier designs. The school began in 1909 as a private training school founded by Dr. James E. Shepard, became a state institution in 1923, and in 1925 was reorganized as the North Carolina College for Negroes, described as the nation's first state-supported four-year liberal arts college for Black students. The campus reflects Shepard's leadership and the achievements of Durham's Black community in the early twentieth century. Landscaped terraces, stone benches and tree-filled grounds complete the setting.