The quad and Wingate University
A special committee is being formed at Wingate University to consider next steps after it was discovered that the university is named after a slaveholder.
Wingate President Rhett Brown said in a statement that the Charlotte-area university investigated names around the campus in 2018 to see if anything was named after someone with “an egregious past.” During that investigation, nothing was uncovered to link Washington Manly Wingate to slavery.
Brown says he recently learned of Wingate’s past from the president of Wake Forest University. It was discovered when a Wake Forest sociology professor discovered that every president of Wake Forest up until the Civil War including Washington Wingate kept enslaved people. Wingate University was founded in 1896 as The Wingate School.
The council passed the resolution on a 7-1 vote
Wake Forest Universityâs announcement last week that it would rename a campus building that honored a slaveholding former president had some ripple effects.
Not only did this decision affect Wake Forest, it also has caused Wingate University near Charlotte to reconsider its own history.
Wake Forest on Friday said itâs changing the name of Wingate Hall, the building adjacent to Wait Chapel and home of its divinity school. The building will be called May 7, 1860 Hall to commemorate the date that Wake Forest College, as it was known then, sold 16 enslaved men, women and children. The college used the proceeds of the sale â nearly $11,000 â to establish its first endowment.
Wake Forest University Renames Building In Bid For A More Inclusive History by Paul Garber
9:43pm May 09, 2021 Wingate Hall on the campus of Wake Forest University will be renamed to May 7, 1860 Hall. PAUL GARBER/WFDD
Wake Forest University is renaming one of its campus buildings as part of a review of its history as the university seeks a more inclusive view of its past.
Wake Forest President Nathan Hatch announced last week that Wingate Hall will no longer carry the name of the university’s fourth president, Washington Manly Wingate, who served terms both before and after the Civil War.
Wingate University in North Carolina acknowledges its namesake sold slaves
Wingate University, a private liberal arts college in North Carolina, has set up a committee to determine “next steps” after learning its namesake, Washington Manly Wingate, sold slaves a year before the Civil War.
The committee of faculty, staff, students, alumni, trustees, town officials and others will discuss next steps, the university said in a statement. It’s unclear if those steps might include changing the school’s name.
“This truth hurts,” Wingate President Rhett Brown said in the statement. “It casts a shadow over our university, my alma mater, and is not in keeping with who we are today, what we value and how we strive to be more inclusive for the students who study here and the people who work here.”
Wake Forest University will rename a campus building in an attempt to reckon with an institutional history that stretches back to before the Civil War and includes slavery.
The university announced Friday that it will give Wingate Hall a new name: May 7, 1860 Hall. That s the date when it sold 16 enslaved persons at auction to benefit the school.
But the adjacent Wait Chapel will keep its name, Wake Forest University President Nathan Hatch wrote in a message to campus Friday. Both buildings are named for past Wake Forest presidents, both of whom owned slaves who worked at the school and helped build it.