MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The University of Alabama Board of Trustees voted this week to rename a campus hall that honored a white supremacist.
Trustees voted unanimously to rename Morgan Hall, named for U.S. Sen. John Tyler Morgan in 1910, to the English Building for the time being. Trustee John England said Thursday he hopes the building will be renamed for an “appropriate individual” in the future.Â
A Confederate general, Morgan later served for three decades in the Senate. He was known for his expansionist policies, playing a large role in what would eventually become the Panama Canal, and England noted that Morgan successfully lobbied Congress for a large and profitable land grant that substantially contributed to the university.Â
But England said trustees who reviewed Morgan’s history agreed he was an “ardent white supremacist.”
While speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1890 against a bill designed to protect voting rights, Morgan said the “condition of the country would be better” without the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees voting rights to men regardless of race or color.  Â
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“He referred to African Americans as ‘rats’ from the floor of the U.S. Senate and said slavery was the ‘highest point the Negro race could achieve.’ Of course, that means me,” said England, who is Black. “As our research confirmed, Sen. Morgan laid the groundwork for the Jim Crow laws that would disenfranchise African Americans for decades.”
England also noted Morgan’s staunch advocacy for “mass immigration for African Americans” as an attempt to “send us out of this country we worked to help build.”
Some campus members have long advocated for renaming myriad buildings and landmarks on the University of Alabama campus with direct ties to white supremacists and the Confederacy, a government specifically founded on the idea of white supremacy. Students have for years petitioned for the renaming of Morgan, while academics such as associate professor Hilary Green have devoted scholarship to researching the university’s direct ties to slavery.Â
In the wake of a massive civil rights movement this summer — sparked by the police killing of George Floyd and subsequent national discussions of systemic racism throughout the country — institutions such as UA have finally moved to officially address those concerns.
A summer petition circulated by UA students drew more than 17,000 signatures urging university leaders to rename buildings named for slave owners and white supremacists. The school’s Student Government Association soon urged administrators to take action.
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On June 8, President Pro Tempore Ronald Gray appointed a working group of trustees to study the history of campus landmarks and building names. A day later, the school removed plaques honoring Confederate soldiers on the campus quad.Â
In August, trustees voted to rename Nott Hall, a building housing UA’s honors college. The hall honored Josiah Clark Nott, a physician and fervent defender of slavery who had tenuous connection to the university.Â
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But some on campus are calling for additional transparency and input in the working group’s process.Â
Following the renaming of Nott Hall, an employee union chapter released a statement that state workers were “disappointed” to not have a seat at the table during discussions. United Campus Workers also said they were “outraged” that the hall was renamed to the generic Honors Hall instead of commemorating a Black Alabamian who has contributed to the university and Alabama.Â
In a board resolution officially adopting the name change, trustees announced UA plans to display a plaque in the location where Morgan’s portrait once hung inside the hall. The plaque will feature the following language:
“In 1910, at this building’s dedication, the University of Alabama’s Board of Trustees named it Morgan Hall, for John Tyler Morgan of Selma. A longtime state political leader, Morgan had died three years earlier, but had served as one of Alabama’s U.S. Senators for the last thirty years of his life.
As a Senator, Morgan rendered the University a vital service in a time of need. In 1884, he successfully lobbied Congress for a federal land grant of 46,080 acres to compensate for University buildings burned by Union troops almost twenty years earlier, in the closing weeks of the Civil War. Until that grant, for almost two decades after the war, the University had struggled to survive financially. Revenue from leases and sales of this land funded the construction of at least five new buildings and other major campus improvements. It helped the University regain a more solid financial footing on which it would continue to build. Lease revenues still benefit the University today, and the University continues to be grateful for Senator Morgan’s efforts on its behalf.
Senator Morgan was, however, also an ardent white supremacist. He led Alabama in suppressing the rights of African Americans and denying them full citizenship, and these efforts were a core element of his work for half a century. Senator Morgan defended slavery before the Civil War, advocated secession from the Union to protect slavery, led in restoring white control after the Civil War, and helped establish the system of racial segregation. His harsh actions and strident words contributed to decades of racial injustice in Alabama and the United States.
Because these actions conflict so profoundly with the current values of the University of Alabama System, the Board of Trustees voted on September 17, 2020, to remove Senator Morgan’s name from the building. The Board also called for the placement of this plaque to explain the reasons both for the University’s gratitude to Senator Morgan and for the decision to change the building’s name.
