University of Richmond strips names of enslavers from campus buildings

^{Photo of the Humanities Building from Wikicommons}

The University of Richmond announced Monday that it has removed from six buildings the names of people who supported slavery and racial segregation, including its 19th-century founding president.

The action reversed a decision the university made a year ago to keep two historical names on the campus map despite their ties to white supremacy.

The renamings at the 4,000-student private university in Virginia culminate a lengthy period of historical research and soul-searching over prominent figures from its past and the roles they played in racial oppression. Last spring, student and faculty protests erupted in Richmond after the university’s board of trustees declared it would not change two building names that had become controversial. Then the board agreed to revisit the matter.

These events at the university coincided with a broad racial reckoning throughout higher education that picked up speed in 2020 after the murder by police of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.

Now, what was Ryland Hall at the University of Richmond is the Humanities Building. The Rev. Robert...