Niners Remember
In the wake of the tragic shooting on April 30, 2019 students, staff, faculty, and members of the larger Charlotte community gathered together to mourn for Reed Parlier and Riley Howell. Impromptu memorials at the Kennedy building and the Miner statue were filled with hundreds of candles, flowers, letters of condolence, and other mementos of our collective grief and sadness. When poor weather threatened to destroy these sites, staff members with Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives stepped in to protect these remembrances from damage. As a result, the items left at the memorial sites found a new home in the archives as part of the UNC Charlotte April 30 Tragedy Memorial Collection.
In remembrance of the second anniversary of April 30, University Archives is sharing this collection with the UNC Charlotte community. Archival materials include photographs, videos, letters, oral histories, and other remembrances created in the days, weeks, and months after the shooting. The items featured on this site highlight the ways in which UNC Charlotte, the surrounding community, and the nation grieved together in the days following the tragedy. They showcase the resilience of our campus community and the ways in which we will always remember those who were lost and forever changed that day.
Oral History
Christine Reed Davis
Christine Reed Davis, Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, speaks about community.
Share Your Experience of April 30
UNC Charlotte’s University Archives is collecting digital photos, videos, first-hand accounts, artwork, correspondence, and other materials related to the tragic events of April 30, 2019, and the responses to it both inside our campus community and throughout our region.
The University Archives serves as the collective memory of our campus history. Once archived, these materials will help tell the stories of those affected by this tragedy and will make those stories available to a wider audience in years to come. We hope the collection will provide historical context for understanding this event and document both the official and unofficial responses to it. With your help, the memory of our students who were injured or lost forever will be preserved in the history of UNC Charlotte through the University Archives. Submissions to the Archive may be selected for use in a curated gallery on the Niner Nation Remembers website.