Emory University to Remove Slavery Advocate’s Name From Dorm

Emory University will remove the name of an antebellum slavery supporter from a dormitory and add the name of a Black judge to a classroom building as it confronts what its current president calls “a legacy of racism.”

The private university also plans memorials on both its Atlanta and Oxford, Georgia, campuses to the enslaved people who built its campus in Oxford {snip}

Fenves said he’s still considering some other proposed name changes, including removing the name of Robert Yerkes from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Yerkes was a psychologist and primate researcher who is criticized today for claims that Black people and recent immigrants were of lower intelligence than native-born white people.

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The Longstreet-Means dormitory will be renamed Eagle Hall, Fenves said. Augustus Baldwin Longstreet wrote pro-slavery pamphlets during his tenure as Emory College president from 1839 to 1848, according to the committee’s report. His name will also be stripped from an English professorship.

Horace J. Johnson Jr.’s name will be added to Language Hall at Oxford College, a two-year Emory school that focuses on liberal arts education. In 2002, Johnson became the first Black Superior Court Judge in Georgia’s Alcovy Judicial Circuit.

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