USC commission’s draft report calls for renaming Strom Thurmond building, 10 others

A draft report from an internal University of South Carolina commission calls for renaming the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center and 10 other campus buildings.

The USC Presidential Commission on University History produced research reports on 14 people who have buildings or landmarks named for them, according to a copy of the draft report obtained by The State. Of those, a subcommittee of the commission recommends changing buildings named for 11 people:

• Robert Barnwell, former USC president and lawmaker who signed the Confederate Constitution and served in the Confederate Senate
• Solomon Blatt, longtime S.C. lawmaker and ardent segregationist
• Thomas Cooper, former S.C. College president, slave owner and supporter of slavery
• L. Marion Gressette, former S.C. lawmaker who delayed school integration
• Wade Hampton III, Confederate general and former S.C. governor
• Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederacy
• Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, former S.C. College president who supported secession
• William Campbell Preston, former S.C. College president and supporter of nullification and slavery
• J. Marion Sims, founder of modern gynecology who experimented on enslaved women
• James Henley Thornwell, former S.C. College president and influential pro-slavery advocate
• Strom Thurmond, longtime S.C. lawmaker who supported segregation in the 1940s and ‘50s

Three names that the commission said should remain are:

• Ernest F. Hollings, senator and S.C. Governor who initially opposed civil rights legislation
• Francis Lieber, former S.C. College professor and abolitionist
• Jonathan Maxcy, former S.C. College president

On Friday, the full commission will vote to approve or decline the final report, according to the commission’s agenda. If the commission approves the draft recommendations, USC’s administration will then decide whether to send the report to the university’s board of trustees for a vote.

Shortly after former USC President Robert Caslen took office in 2019, he created the commission to review controversial building names. Following the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, campus activism increased around the issue of building names, especially raising calls to rename the Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center.

Thurmond, a former governor and U.S. senator from South Carolina, was an ardent supporter of segregation in the ‘40s and ‘50s before reversing his stance later in life. One of Thurmond’s biographers has called his legacy “complicated” because although Thurmond reinforced segregation, he also abolished the poll tax and pushed for criminal prosecution of lynch mobs, The State reported previously.

“While the Heritage Act remains in place, the Board of Trustees is still committed to developing new policies that will address assigning names to new buildings and places on campus,” USC Interim President Harris Pastides said in a letter to students and employees. “The recommended names will be considered by the board and those ultimately selected will stand as a permanent testament to our collective history. “

The report takes note of many public comments, including those by former Gamecock football star Marcus Lattimore, who called for the Thurmond center to be renamed. Those who pushed for the gym to be renamed noted Thurmond’s opposition to the federal Voting Rights Act, his presidential bid as a “Dixiecrat” in 1948 and his fathering a child with a 15-year-old when he was 22, according to the report.

Those who supported keeping the center named after Thurmond cited the late senator’s work as a teacher in Edgefield, his securing scholarship money and education funding while in office and hiring the first African American senior staffer by a southern lawmaker in the 1970s. The report also noted that President Joe Biden, during Thurmond’s 2003 funeral, said he believes Thurmond “at his core” was not a racist, the report said. Biden was a U.S. senator at the time.

The report also found that the Thurmond center was built on the site of a historic African American elementary school named for educator Celia Dial Saxon. Saxon, who was born into slavery and lived from 1857-1935, graduated from USC during Reconstruction and taught at Booker T. Washington High School and Benedict College. Saxon also helped found Fairwold Industrial School for Negro Girls, the Wilkinson Orphanage for Negro Children, and a branch of the YMCA in Columbia, according to the report. Saxon is one of 14 African Americans the draft report recommends honoring with new building names.

Last year, USC’s board of trustees unanimously recommended changing the name of a women’s dorm named for J. Marion Sims, who pioneered modern gynecology by experimenting on enslaved women without anesthesia. Because of the state’s Heritage Act, USC is not allowed to change the name of a building named for a historical figure without a two-thirds approval from the legislature, often seen as an impossibly high hurdle. The two-thirds rule of the Heritage Act is being challenged in court.

The commission includes students, board of trustee members, historians, faculty, experts and more, according to USC’s website.

This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 2:27 PM.