Group urges Emory to change building names

Education

Group urges Emory to change building names

Several dozen Emory University graduates, faculty members and students are pressuring the school to change the names of buildings and professorships named after four men they call “leading figures of racism, slavery, antisemitism and eugenics.” (File photo)

Atticus Greene Haygood. A residence hall is named after Haygood, Emory’s president from 1875 to 1884. Haygood helped found what is now Paine College, a historically Black college in Augusta. Haygood was outspoken against Blacks voting after the Civil War and supported the idea of putting the parents of biracial children on chain gangs. Source: Emory University Committee on Naming Honors. (Courtesy of Emory University)

Lucius Q.C. Lamar. Three law school professorships bear the name of Lamar, an Emory graduate who was on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888 to 1893. Lamar defended slavery, saying “life will be unbearable” if Blacks gained voting rights. Source: Emory University Committee on Naming Honors. (Courtesy of Oyez)

George Foster Pierce. A street on Emory’s Atlanta and Oxford campuses are among the honors for Pierce, who was its president from 1848 to 1854. He frequently defended slavery. Source: Emory University Committee on Naming Honors. (Courtesy of Emory University).

Robert Yerkes. Yerkes founded the Yale University Laboratories of Primate Biology, which was moved after his death in 1956 to Emory. He developed psychological tests during World War I that reinforced white supremacy. Yerkes supported eugenics and the sterilization of the disabled and mentally ill. Source: Emory University Committee on Naming Honors. (Courtesy of Emory University)

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Several dozen Emory University graduates, faculty members and students are pressuring the school to change the names of buildings and professorships named after four men they call “leading figures of racism, slavery, antisemitism and eugenics.” (File photo)

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