Baylor will rename campus area and relocate statue of slave-owning former university president

[TexasTowelie]

by Kate McGee, Texas Tribune


The Baylor University Board of Regents voted Friday to rename a campus quadrangle and relocate a statue of a slave-owning former university president more than a year after a university-commissioned report recommended the changes.

The vote means the school’s Burleson Quadrangle will be changed to The Quadrangle. The school will also relocate a statue of former Baylor President Rufus Burleson from that space and place it in between two academic buildings on campus.

“Our goal at the outset of this process was not to erase Baylor’s history, but rather to tell the University’s complete story by taking an additive approach as we shine light on the past,” board President Mark Rountree said in a statement. “Some of the facts uncovered about the University’s history have indeed been painful, but it is important that we move forward together as the Baylor Family through an intentional process of reckoning, repentance, reconciliation and redemption.”

Burleson not only owned slaves and served in the Confederate army as a chaplain, but he promoted an idea known as the “Lost Cause” theory that said slavery was justified and moral and honored antebellum whiteness.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/20/baylor-university-statues-changes/

[Sneederbunk]

1. Namesake R.E.B Baylor was a slaveowner.

As a judge he ordered the execution of slaves.

[hurl]

2. Not enough of course

I got my undergraduate degree from Baylor and still carry some cringe despite it being of pretty solid quality. Raised in a fundamentalist household, that was the school I thought would be best for me. In a way, it really was, because the required Survey of the Bible class helped me lose the faith that brought me there in the first place and started me on the path toward becoming the godless, flaming liberal I am today. But my today self would always steer potential students away from this hellhole. There are so many better paths.

[TexasTowelie]

3. Down the road at Southwestern

I took Intro to World Religions and the Methodists let us dance at our parties. It also didn't hurt that the American government class that I had during the first semester was taught by the hippie instructor who also taught the Marxism class.

[hurl]

4. Cool!

Super glad we both found our true paths despite indoctrination attempts. I'm happy to learn of your parallel experience birthed from a completely different perspective.