Some Hammond alumni want to rename school, distancing it from slave-owning pedophile

Alumni of the prestigious Hammond School in Columbia, S.C., are calling on officials to change the school’s name amid a nationwide reckoning over buildings and institutions named for avowed racists and slave owners.

But the case against the man for whom the school is named, former S.C. Governor, U.S. Senator and Congressman James H. Hammond, includes not only that he was a brutal slave owner, but also an admitted pedophile and sexual abuser.

“In an era where virtually everyone in power in the South was a proponent of slavery . . . Hammond was more horrible than any other political leader I am aware of,” said Dana Beach, a conservationist and 1973 alumnus of Hammond School.

While the school still has the name “Hammond,” it is no longer legally associated with James Hammond’s name, Head of School Christopher Angel said in a statement. Hammond retained its name because the school has created a brand recognizable for academics and athletics, Angel said.

“Because colleges and universities across the country, and even internationally, recognize us by name for our high academic standards and for the quality of students we graduate, it has been important to retain that distinction,” Angel said.

“So many good things happen on our campus for students of all races, religions, and backgrounds,” Angel said.

Alex English, a former University of South Carolina basketball and NBA star whose five children attended Hammond in the ‘90s, agreed the name change was due.

“I would be all in favor of it because when I was growing up at Dreher, Hammond was the white flight school,” English said. “It’s always had that tag on it.”

English’s children weren’t the first Black students at Hammond, but the school still had very little diversity at the time, he said. And while then-Headmaster Herb Barks was welcoming and happy to have English’s children there, and his children had many positive memories from being there, they still experienced racism, said English, who now serves on USC’s board of trustees.

For example, when some of his kids dated a white classmate, would date one of their white classmates, the kids’ parents ostracized their child for dating a Black person, English said.

Only two of English’s children graduated from Hammond. Others transferred to Heathwood Hall, which English saw as more diverse and accepting.

“I wish I’d sent them to Heathwood,” English said.

James Hammond, who gave the famous Antebellum “Cotton is King” speech before Congress, kept a detailed diary in which he talked about sexually abusing his four teenage nieces and his 12-year-old daughter, the mother of whom he had enslaved, according to a 1989 New York Times article.

Hammond’s abuse of his nieces was made public during his lifetime — he died in 1864 — and prevented all four of the girls he abused from ever being married.

While slavery anywhere was a brutal institution, people enslaved by Hammond died at a higher rate than their peers. During a span of 10 years, 78 people whom he had enslaved died, according to The New York Times.

None of this is mentioned on Hammond’s website, which describes Hammond as simply a “South Carolina statesman,” and says the 1989 name change diluting Hammond’s influence was “to adopt a global focus.”

“The guy was really a vile, vile human being,” Beach said.

Dr. Alison Smith, a language professor at The Citadel who graduated from Hammond in 1979, agreed.

“We’re in a different time in this historic moment,” Smith said.

Hammond history

Hammond School, located near the Dorn Veterans hospital, was founded in 1966 as a way for white parents to send their children to de facto segregation schools amid school integration.

Originally, the school was called James H. Hammond Academy and flew the Confederate flag alongside the American and South Carolina flags until 1984, according to the book Shades of Gray: Dispatches from the Modern South.

Beach forwarded to The State emails he sent to Angel, Hammond’s head of school, asking school officials to reconsider naming the school.

“We’re certainly using this time in history to be thoughtful and to engage with students, both current as well as recent alumni, to continue our work with inclusivity,” Angel told Beach in an email. “As for the name, I’m pleased that we dissociated ourselves from James H. back in 1989 but certainly will be including this in future conversations as well.”

Angel was referring to when the school’s board of trustees voted in 1989 to change the name of the school from James H. Hammond Academy to Hammond School.

Callie Shell, a CNN and Time Magazine photographer who graduated from Hammond, said that name change was a “half-measure.”

“If you’re embarrassed and horrified enough to take off part of the name, why not take off the whole name?” Shell said.

“I don’t tell anybody I went to Hammond because of the name and because of when I went there,” Shell said, noting that the school still flew the Confederate flag when she graduated in 1979.

Both Smith and Beach agreed they were happy to see the changes Hammond has made in the past few decades, by admitting Black students, removing the Confederate flag and diluting the school’s connection to a pedophile and slave owner.

Another example: Last year’s student body president, Alex Huntley, is Black.

Smith is not an active alumna in Hammond, and said part of the reason for that is because her alma mater’s history as a vehicle for segregation and the — abbreviated, but lingering — name.

As far as what to call the school instead, Smith said it should be a panel of faculty, students, community members and more. Beach floated the idea of having the school be named after James Petigru, the last prominent South Carolinian to oppose seceding from the union, though Beach noted that Petigru was a slave owner, which may count him out altogether, he said.

The school needs to acknowledge its history as an institution that propped up segregation and continued for years to exclude Black students, Smith said.

“I really think it needs to go past the name change,” Smith said.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the year which Alison Smith’s graduated from Hammond. She graduated in 1979.

This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 12:58 PM.