Not no, but HELL NO.
RTR
LC
--- Joel Perry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> UA faculty considers apologizing for campus slavery
> By JAY REEVES
> The Associated Press
> 4/19/2004, 12:02 a.m. CT
> TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) -- Vestiges of slavery are all
> over the University of
> Alabama.
> Behind the majestic president's mansion are three
> small buildings where
> slaves lived and worked before the Civil War. The
> mansion and several other
> campus structures contain bricks made by slaves.
> Teachers of the antebellum period owned slaves, and
> two buildings are named
> for university presidents who did, too. Another hall
> honors a doctor who
> advocated the idea that blacks were genetically fit
> for slavery.
> With all these reminders and more lingering at a
> university that is now
> among the most racially integrated in the South,
> leaders are making a break
> with the sins of the past.
> The Faculty Senate on Tuesday will consider a
> resolution apologizing to the
> descendants of people who were enslaved at Alabama,
> founded in 1831 and
> mostly destroyed by Union troops during the war
> before being rebuilt.
> President Robert Witt said he "doesn't have a
> problem" with the apology if
> it is a beginning rather than an end to the
> university's attempts to become
> more diverse and inclusive.
> "If it does stop there we fail," Witt said in an
> interview. "I am afraid
> some think words are enough. I do not."
> Last week, with momentum for the apology building,
> Witt agreed to the
> requests of students and teachers who asked
> administrators to acknowledge
> the school's links to slavery with historic markers,
> including one near the
> unmarked graves of two slaves buried on campus.
> The author of the proposed apology, law professor
> Alfred Brophy, said the
> resolution is more about making a statement of
> acceptance today than
> stirring up the hurts of the 1800s.
> While reparations for slave descendants and
> apologies have been discussed
> for several years nationwide, no other university
> has apologized for its
> ties to slavery, Brophy said.
> "I hope this will be something positive for the
> university," said Brophy,
> walking near a campus building he said may have been
> built in part with
> slave labor.
> The proposal has critics, however.
> Brophy, with degrees from Columbia University and
> Yale University, has been
> lambasted on talk radio shows, and the Web site of
> the school newspaper is
> sprinkled with criticism.
> A faculty member who opposes the apology called
> slavery "the great American
> tragedy" - an indelible, horrid part of American
> culture.
> Because of that, said music professor Marvin
> Johnson, the idea that an
> apology could do any good is demeaning to blacks who
> were enslaved, poor
> whites who suffered under the antebellum economic
> system and faculty members
> of the 1800s who were following a practice of their
> time.
> "It's not going to fix anything," said Johnson. "You
> can't `apologize' for
> slavery. It's a drastic oversimplification."
> Alabama isn't the only school reviewing its ties to
> slavery. Brown
> University in Providence, R.I., last month began a
> two-year inquiry into its
> links to the slave trade.
> But race is a particularly sensitive topic at
> Alabama, which last year
> marked the 40th anniversary of then-Gov. George C.
> Wallace's showy "stand in
> the schoolhouse door" to prevent integration in
> 1963.
> Brophy, who has written on race and property laws in
> early America, came to
> Alabama in 2001. A campus diversity group asked him
> last year to present a
> talk on slavery at the university, which today has
> about 20,000 students, 15
> percent of whom are from minority groups.
> Research assistants found texts and records
> documenting the use of slaves at
> Alabama, which had only a half-dozen or so faculty
> members and about 100
> students when the Civil War began.
> Brophy said he was amazed by some of what they
> found:
> Basil Manly, a prominent Baptist minister who served
> as university president
> from 1838 to 1855 and gave the invocation at the
> inauguration of Confederate
> President Jefferson Davis, owned slaves and was a
> leading apologist for
> slavery, Brophy said. Today, Manly Hall is named for
> him.
> Nott Hall is named for Josiah Nott, remembered today
> mainly as a proponent
> of the theory that different races of people had
> different origins, and that
> blacks were genetically built for slavery.
> Besides the president's mansion and an old
> observatory that survived the
> war, Brophy said, slave labor went into Gorgas
> House, built in 1829 and the
> oldest building on campus. A historic marker outside
> the house tells of the
> family it was named for, but it doesn't mention the
> slaves who helped build
> it and, for a time, lived there.
> Brophy said that while he would like to see the
> names of some buildings
> altered to acknowledge the early role of blacks at
> Alabama, he doesn't
> believe anything should be removed, including a
> stone marker honoring
> students who served in the Confederate army.
> Manly Hall could become Manly-Luna Hall to
> acknowledge a campus slave named
> Luna, he said.
> "You want to have monuments to the people of the
> past. But let other people
> have their monuments, too," said Brophy.
> Witt doesn't support the idea of renaming campus
> structures. Rather, he
> said, new things should be added to give a broader
> portrait of the
> university's past.
> With the Faculty Senate set to vote on Brophy's
> resolution, his work already
> has had an impact.
> Last week, about 80 people attended a ceremony
> organized by black students
> to remember two slaves known only as Jack and Boysey
> who were interred near
> the old campus cemetery.
> Witt announced the new historic markers and other
> acknowledgments of
> Alabama's ties to slavery after meeting with
> organizers of the ceremony,
> which he attended rather than going to a trustee
> meeting.
> Robert Turner, a senior from Tuskegee who helped
> organize the event, said it
> is important for the university to tell the whole
> truth about what happened
> on campus during the antebellum period.
> "The university has a duty to own up to its past,"
> said Turner.
>
>
>
>
______________________________________________________
> RollTideFan - The University of Alabama Athletics
> Discussion List
>
> "Welcome to RollTideFan! Wear a cup!"
>
> To join or leave the list or to make changes to your
> subscription visit http://listinfo.rolltidefan.net
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢
http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash
______________________________________________________
RollTideFan - The University of Alabama Athletics Discussion List
"Welcome to RollTideFan! Wear a cup!"
To join or leave the list or to make changes to your subscription visit
http://listinfo.rolltidefan.net
