BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Commission on Historic Campus Representations FINAL REPORT Prepared for the Baylor University Board of Regents and Administration December 2020 Table of Contents 3 Foreword 5 Introduction 9 Part 1 - Founders Mall Founders Mall Historic Representations Commission Assessment and Recommendations 31 Part 2 - Burleson Quadrangle Burleson Quadrangle Historic Representations Commission Assessment and Recommendations 53 Part 3 - Windmill Hill and Academy Hill at Independence Windmill Hill and Academy Hill Historic Representations Commission Assessment and Recommendations 65 Part 4 - Miscellaneous Historic Representations Mace, Founders Medal, and Mayborn Museum Exhibit Commission Assessment and Recommendations 74 Appendix 1 76 Appendix 2 81 Appendix 3 82 Endnotes COMMISSION ON HISTORIC CAMPUS REPRESENTATIONS I 1 Commission on Historic Campus Representations COMMISSION CO-CHAIRS Cheryl Gochis (B.A. ’91, M.A. Michael Parrish, Ph.D. (B.A. ’74, ’94), Vice President, Human M.A. ’76), Linden G. Bowers Alicia D.H. Monroe, M.D., Resources/Chief Human Professor of American History Provost and Senior Vice Resources Officer President for Academic and Coretta Pittman, Ph.D., Faculty Affairs, Baylor College of Dominque Hill, Director of Associate Professor of English Medicine and member, Baylor Wellness and Past-President, and Chair-Elect, Faculty Senate Board of Regents Black Faculty and Staff Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D. Association Gary Mortenson, D.M.A., (M.S.Ed. ’98, M.A. ’01), Professor and Dean, Baylor Sutton Houser, Senior, Student Professor and Chair, Journalism, University School of Music Body President Public Relations and New Media Walter Abercrombie (B.S. ’82, Trent Hughes (B.A. ’98), Vice Marcus Sedberry, Senior M.S.Ed. ’92), Associate Athletics President of Sales, Curazene Associate Athletics Director for Director for Baylor “B” and Vice President, Baylor Student-Athlete Development Association Alumni Board of Advocates Tyrha Lindsey-Warren, Ph.D., Sher Isada, Junior, University Clinical Assistant Professor of COMMISSION MEMBERS Scholar, and Student Regent Marketing Katie Adair (Doctoral Candidate), Alan Lefever (B.A. ’84), Director, Doug Weaver, Ph.D., Professor President, Graduate Student Texas Baptist Historical of Religion, Undergraduate Association Collection and member, Baylor Program Director, and Director Alumni Board of Advocates of Church-State Studies Joel Allison (B.A. ’70), retired President and CEO, Baylor Scott Sandra Lené, Associate Vice Mya Ellington-Williams, Senior, & White Health; and former President, Operations and member, Black Student Union Chair, Baylor Board of Regents Financial Services, University Advancement Jayson Baldridge, Senior, EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS Student-Athlete, Track & Field Mark Lovvorn (B.B.A. ’76, B.Acc. ’77), Chairman and CEO, Kristy Orr (J.D. ’03), Baylor Lexy Bogney, Junior, Secretary Providence Bancshares University Board Professional and Community Coordination Corporation, Dallas and member, Todd Copeland, Ph.D. (B.A. ’90), Chair, Baylor NAACP Baylor Board of Regents Director, Advancement Marketing Michael A. Evans, Sr. (D.Min. Michael McFarland (B.B.A. ’93, ’09), Senior Pastor, Bethlehem Ed.D. ’05), Superintendent of Karen Kemp (B.B.A. ’84, M.B.A. Baptist Church, Mansfield, TX; Schools, Crowley Independent ’85), Associate Vice President, member, Baylor Board of School District and member, University Marketing and Brand Regents; and President, Baptist Baylor Board of Regents Strategy General Convention of Texas Bill Neilson, M.D., (B.A. ’76), Malcolm Foley (Ph.D. retired Associate Dean, Honors LOGISTICAL SUPPORT Candidate), Special Advisor to College and Clinical Professor, the President for Equity and Medical Humanities Sarah Schmuck, Board Relations Campus Engagement Specialist 2 I BAYLOR UNIVERSITY Foreword In June 2020, the Baylor Board of Regents established the Commission on Historic Campus Representations as part of a unanimously passed resolution that acknowledged the University’s historical connections to slavery and the Confederacy. The Commission was charged “to provide guidance on presenting Baylor’s complete history as the University continues striving to foster an environment through which racial equality is inextricably linked to our mission, and in which students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of color know they are valued and loved throughout the Baylor community, both on campus and in all reaches of the Baylor family.” The specific charge to the Commission included a review of the complete historical record of the University’s founders and early leaders in terms of their historical connections to slavery and racial injustice; the creation of a plan for documenting and communicating that complete history; and an evaluation of statues, monuments, buildings, and other aspects of the Baylor campus, considered within historical context, in terms of the original intentions behind their physical location, placement, and naming. The Commission was to compile its work into a Final Report to be provided to the Board of Regents and the President no later than December 20, 2020. What follows constitutes the culmination of five months of reading, listening, learning, and sharing through the collective efforts of the three Commission Co-Chairs, 23 Commission Members, three Ex-Officio Commission Members, and Logistics Coordinator. Commission meetings involved both the entire group and breakout groups in which ideas were shared and heard, and bonds were formed through difficult conversations resulting in greater understanding and consensus building. The Commission on Historic Representations hopes this document will guide Baylor’s Board of Regents and administrative leaders as they explore the promise articulated in the final paragraph of the communication that Regent Chair Mark Rountree and President Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D., released to the public on July 6, 2020: “We believe now is the time for Baylor, as a Christian university, to lead by listening and learning with humility about our past and from voices that have been unheard for years while also taking tangible steps forward. In addition to making an important and visible contribution to today’s campus and Baylor community, the Commission’s work will create a lasting legacy for future generations of Baylor Bears.” Commission Co-Chairs Alicia Monroe Gary Mortenson Walter Abercrombie 2 I BAYLOR UNIVERSITY COMMISSION ON HISTORIC CAMPUS REPRESENTATIONS I 3 4 I BAYLOR UNIVERSITY INTRODUCTION Statement of Institutional Opportunity The injustices and inhumane suffering experienced by the contributions of wealthy slave owners in by enslaved people in North America during the Washington County and the surrounding area, more than two centuries preceding the Civil War such as Judge R.E.B. Baylor, William Milton and continuing into the eras of Reconstruction Tryon, James Huckins, Albert G. Haynes, Lt. Gov. and Jim Crow laws across the American South Albert Clinton Horton, and General Sam Houston. have been incontrovertibly established as Similarly, the University’s ongoing operations, being of profoundly detrimental and enduring across generations of students and faculty, consequence to the descendants of those have benefited from the accrued value of those individuals and families and to our nation foundational investments made possible by the itself. Indeed, as historians have long noted, institution of chattel slavery. However, “the fatal the past is not a foreign country but rather an poison” of slavery has remained in circulation, ongoing, shaping force in our national identity in both latent and manifest forms, within the and experience as Americans today. One finds body of Baylor University over the course of the consequences of slavery extending into these many years, and it will continue to prove our present era in the United States in the form an impediment to the University’s full realization of limited opportunities for advancement and of its potential as a Christian research university disproportionate vulnerabilities to oppression and until it is extracted and its damages remedied. harm among communities of people of color. Today, in keeping with our Christian commitment, The trauma of slavery, during its practice, was Baylor University must stand with our brothers and pervasive. Frederick Douglass, author of the sisters in Christ in unequivocally acknowledging abolitionist memoir A Narrative of the Life of that the institution’s roots in American chattel Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), slavery—and its early leaders’ role in a civil noted that those who enslaved others likewise war fought to preserve it—require unflinching experienced a type of harm that, although of confrontation and intentional acts of repentance. their own doing, was nonetheless real and We must, without reservation, acknowledge damaging. Describing “the fatal poison of that our nation’s long history of enslavement, irresponsible power” to which slave owners having evolved into structural racism and bias exposed themselves, Douglass once stated, permeating our democratic and economic “No man can put a chain about the ankle of institutions, today requires the intentional practice his fellow man without at last finding the of contrite reconciliation as a countermeasure. other end fastened about his own neck.” The diversity of the Baylor Family is one of the The mutually injurious effects of slavery were University’s greatest strengths. We must honor as pertinent for institutions as they were this diversity by engaging