Who are some of the Names from Emory’s Racist Past?

The Georgia Board of Regents was heavily criticized for its inaction to act in November on an advisory group’s recommendations to rename more than six dozen buildings and colleges named after men who were slave owners and ardent segregationists. Since then students, graduates, and faculty of Emory have been urging the school to remove these names.

This controversial issue may have many asking themselves, “Who are these men that these groups are referring to?”

These four men are considered to be “leading figures of racism, slavery, antisemitism, and eugenics.”

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.

Lucius Q.C. Lamar, Three law school professorships bear the name of Lamar, an Emory graduate who sat on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888 to 1893. Lamar defended slavery, saying “life will be unbearable” if Blacks gained voting rights.

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.

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.