Furman Hall

Warning: Some of the images attached to this location contain racist, derogatory langauge.

The Furman campus moved to downtown Greenville soon after 1850, above the Falls of the Reedy River, and remained there for a century. You're standing in front of the oldest academic building on the "new campus," built in the late 1950s, here near Travelers Rest.

As Professor of Sacred Rhetoric & Pastoral Duties and Ecclesiastical History, D.D., and first president from 1859-1879, James C. Furman certainly is a key figure in the university's history. He was its primary fundraiser and coordinator. but to what extent is this fact worthy of honor? Marian Baker’s 2016 article, "Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation: What is the Furman Legacy" unveils James C. Furman’s horrific involvement in the support of slavery. Baker discusses how Furman was a pro-secession slave-owner. He publically fought and promoted his “southern civil right” to own slaves. The Task Force, in the following two years, also found that James C. would cancel classes to allow students' attendance at lynchings, used racist language to describe African-Americans as an inferior, lazy, race; and promoted in poor whites (who didn't back secession or the Confederacy) the idea that an end to slavery would mean poverty worse than death and that abolitionists would "marry off" southern women and children to Black men.

In 2019, based on the op-ed by Marian Baker and the work of the Task Force on Slavery & Justice, James C. Furman's stained glass window, plaque, and namesake were removed from this building (to the University's Special Collections), and a new plaque describing this reckoning process was installed instead.

Reflective Questions:

Would you create an archival display about James C. Furman, using these removed objects and primary sources? Would doing so continue to valorize him, or traumatize member of Furman's community? Or would it be better shelved along with our other relics?

Suggested Visit:

The Upcountry History Museum at 540 Buncombe Street, Greenville.