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NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — Rutgers University has renamed two buildings and a walkway as part of an ongoing effort to confront the New Jersey school's historical ties to slavery.
The board overseeing the university decided Wednesday to rename the Old Queens Walkway near the main administration building in New Brunswick as "Will's Walkway." That recognizes a slave who helped lay the building's foundation.
The College Avenue Apartments will now be known as the Sojourner Truth Apartments in honor of the abolitionist and former slave who was owned as a young girl by the family of Rutgers' first president, Jacob Hardenbergh.
Officials also agreed to rename the Kilmer Library on the Piscataway campus to the James Dickson Carr Library. Carr was Rutgers' first black graduate. He went on to earn a law degree from Columbia University.
"We thought it was important to show the university is being responsive to this part of our history," said Richard Edwards, chancellor of the university's New Brunswick campus. "We acknowledge there are other aspects to our story and we want to have a more complete portrayal of our history."
The board's actions are part of changes that stem from a detailed report released late last year as part of the book "Scarlet and Black." Edwards ordered the report after black students raised concerns about the racial climate on campus.
The report showed how intertwined slavery was with the early history of Rutgers, a common theme among America's colonial colleges. Rutgers was founded in 1766.
The book combines previously documented history with some new details to paint a vivid picture of the university's relationship with slavery, a history school officials say was largely unacknowledged by Rutgers until this year. It also examines the displacement of Native Americans who once occupied land later transferred to Rutgers.
The book also notes that Rutgers' namesake, Henry Rutgers, owned slaves and that some early university trustees also owned slaves and were among the most ardent anti-abolitionists in the mid-Atlantic region.
A committee of university professors and students spent eight months combing through archived documents and compiling the report.
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