Hallowed Grounds Tour (2020)
Like other early American institutions of higher education, slavery played a significant role. This self-guided alternate campus tour hopes to shed light onto the lives, experiences, and legacy of the many unsung men, women and children who lived, worked, and even died at the University of Alabama.
From the construction of the initial buildings to the destruction of the campus on April 4, 1865, enslaved people performed much of the labor at the University of Alabama. They served on construction crews for all university buildings, maintained the grounds and facilities, cooked, laundered, performed janitorial duties and did other assorted tasks.
According university chroniclers and other scholars, Ben was the first enslaved person purchased by trustees. He worked under the direction of the architect and construction managers, did landscaping, and maintained fencing around the first building. While selling Ben in 1831, the University owned several individuals over the next three decades. The majority of enslaved persons were hired out directly from local citizens, university personnel, and trustees.
Viewed as property either owned or leased by the university, enslaved men, women and children labored, survived to the best of their buildings, and helped to build the campus. The legacy of institutional slave past shaped the Jim Crow segregation campus, Civil Rights Movement pioneers, and post-desegregation campus.
This tour showcases the names of the enslaved, the surviving spaces where they labored, their connections to buildings named after individuals who upheld the institution, and hopefully shed light on their campus experiences. In addition to sites of slavery, several tour stops explore this legacy for the present-day campus community, including new additions and renamed buildings.
Legend:
Name of Campus Site of Memory
Enslaved Connections: Known enslaved individuals connected to campus location and in a few instances, the building namesake.
Legacy Connections: Known post-emancipation African American laborers and Civil Rights Movement pioneers.
Year: Dedication year
Description: Brief historical narrative for the campus site of race, slavery and memory.
Latitude and Longitude locations (These are approximate locations).
An accessible pdf version of the tour stops sans Google Map is forthcoming.
From the construction of the initial buildings to the destruction of the campus on April 4, 1865, enslaved people performed much of the labor at the University of Alabama. They served on construction crews for all university buildings, maintained the grounds and facilities, cooked, laundered, performed janitorial duties and did other assorted tasks.
According university chroniclers and other scholars, Ben was the first enslaved person purchased by trustees. He worked under the direction of the architect and construction managers, did landscaping, and maintained fencing around the first building. While selling Ben in 1831, the University owned several individuals over the next three decades. The majority of enslaved persons were hired out directly from local citizens, university personnel, and trustees.
Viewed as property either owned or leased by the university, enslaved men, women and children labored, survived to the best of their buildings, and helped to build the campus. The legacy of institutional slave past shaped the Jim Crow segregation campus, Civil Rights Movement pioneers, and post-desegregation campus.
This tour showcases the names of the enslaved, the surviving spaces where they labored, their connections to buildings named after individuals who upheld the institution, and hopefully shed light on their campus experiences. In addition to sites of slavery, several tour stops explore this legacy for the present-day campus community, including new additions and renamed buildings.
Legend:
Name of Campus Site of Memory
Enslaved Connections: Known enslaved individuals connected to campus location and in a few instances, the building namesake.
Legacy Connections: Known post-emancipation African American laborers and Civil Rights Movement pioneers.
Year: Dedication year
Description: Brief historical narrative for the campus site of race, slavery and memory.
Latitude and Longitude locations (These are approximate locations).
An accessible pdf version of the tour stops sans Google Map is forthcoming.