Carolina blue (occasionally referred to as Tar Heel blue) is the shade of blue used as one of the official school colors of the University of North Carolina. The name is derived from the popular usage of "Carolina" to refer to the university. For clarity in branding and marketing, the University Licensing Office has defined the color as Pantone 278.
Use of the light blue color at UNC dates from 1795 when the Dialectic (blue) and Philanthropic (white) Societies of the university chose representative colors. Society members would wear a blue or white ribbon at university functions, and blue or white ribbons were attached to the diplomas of graduates. When football became a popular collegiate sport in the 1880s, the UNC football team adopted the light blue and white of the Di-Phi Societies as the school colors.
Famous quotes containing the words carolina and/or blue:
“I hear ... foreigners, who would boycott an employer if he hired a colored workman, complain of wrong and oppression, of low wages and long hours, clamoring for eight-hour systems ... ah, come with me, I feel like saying, I can show you workingmen’s wrong and workingmen’s toil which, could it speak, would send up a wail that might be heard from the Potomac to the Rio Grande; and should it unite and act, would shake this country from Carolina to California.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“Little Boy Blue,
Come blow your horn,”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. Little Boy Blue (l. 1–2)