Georgetown isn’t the only university where students are grappling with the history of a few of the campus buildings.
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Mulledy Hall was named after a Georgetown president, Thomas F. Mulledy, who sold hundreds of slaves to eliminate Georgetown’s debts. McSherry advised Mulledy during the 1838 sale.
This is definitely not someone who should have his name affixed to a building on an American university. I have reviewed the working group’s recommendation with our Board of Directors and I have accepted the recommendation to remove these names.
Though the name of an old building on an old campus seems like a rather anachronistic Civil Rights protest, it matters for two key reasons.
Protests against racism at the University of Missouri have sparked a movement that is spreading across the nation. About 50 people sat outside DeGioia’s office at the peak of the sit-in Friday afternoon, doing homework on their laptops and eating pizza sent by supportive alumni, organizers said.
A Georgetown senior named Queen Adesuyi said she and other activists on campus, who’ve organized using the hashtag #BuiltOn272, thought DeGioia only created the Working Group to stall their request. A few are demonstrating exclusively to show solidarity with their brothers and sisters at Mizzou and Yale, the two newest loci of racial tension and debate; others, like the black (and non-black) students engaging in demonstrations like today’s coordinated walkout at 20 schools, are demonstrating for further racial redress where they study. “We are especially moved by the concern for the naming of buildings and the identification of special sites on campus, such as burial plots”.
“As a university”, DeGioia wrote, “we are a place where conversations are convened and dialogue is encouraged, even on topics that may be hard”. The school has not yet chosen permanent names, but for now Mulledy Hall will be called Freedom Hall, and McSherry Hall will be named Remembrance Hall, according to the Washington Post.
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Now the students would like reparations for the slaves’s sale.
