LSU renames buildings in honor of historic African-American figures
9th January 2023 · 0 Comments
By Zoe Trask
Contributing Writer
The LSU Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in December of last year to honor Lutrill and Pearl Payne, Dr. Pinkie Gordon Lane, and Julian T. White by naming two academic programs and one building after these historical African-American figures that attended the university.
This announcement comes years after the nationwide Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protests in June 2020. As a result, LSU students demanded that changes be made to buildings named after individuals whose legacies were connected to racial injustices.
“LSU has significant work to do to continue to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion,” said LSU President William Tate IV. “I believe that concentrating our efforts on honoring Black pioneers and remembering forgotten voices vital to our history best enables us to achieve these objectives as a community,” he added in a statement.
The LSU Building Name Evaluation Committee convened in December 2021 to reevaluate its priorities among the students’ concerns. Due to a reported lack of action, the LSU Student Senate unanimously passed a resolution to “strongly condemn” the slow action on the matter by the university in October 2022, according to the campus newspaper. As the first elected African-American president at the university, Tate said he was pleased to finally announce that LSU is actively putting work towards achieving these symbolic goals.
Dr. Sharlene Sinegal-DeCuir, a history professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, who earned her doctorate at LSU, said she is appreciative of the efforts made by the institution to acknowledge the contributions of the African Americans that shaped its future.
“As a Black female LSU graduate alumna, it gives me pride to know that the school is diversifying in tangible ways that will forever be etched in the minds and memories of future students taking classes in those buildings,” DeCuir said.
The first academic program, The Lutrill & Pearl Payne School of Education, is named after Lutrill and his wife Pearl Payne, some of the university’s first Black students that worked to integrate the LSU graduate school. In 1951, Lutrill Payne won a suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana to integrate the LSU graduate school. In 1956, Pearl enrolled and became the first Black woman to earn a degree from LSU. The second academic program, The Pinkie Gordon Lane Graduate School, is named after Dr. Pinkie Gordon Lane, the first Black woman to earn her doctorate from LSU in 1967. The building, Julian T. White Hall, formerly the Design Building, honors Julian T. White. White was the second licensed architect in Louisiana and LSU’s first Black professor in 1971.
The tremendous work made by these individuals set the precedence for inclusivity and diversity, which are two principles that the university strives to embrace. DeCuir believes that simply renaming the buildings is a step in the right direction, and it is about remembrance that moves LSU forward.
“It is very important that the histories of Louisiana’s state institutions are inclusive in telling the stories of all who fought for justice and equality,” DeCuir said.
This is not the first time that the Board of Supervisors granted a building name change. In June 2020, the board approved a motion that removed the longstanding name of the main campus library honored after Tom H. Middleton, a former LSU president and lieutenant general in World War II that stated his support for maintaining segregation in written letters. Students and alumni continued to press the administration to do more through numerous petitions signed by thousands of students and alumni to change the names of other campus buildings.
That same year, a petition on Change.org led by Democracy at Work, an LSU activist organization, accused the university of having approximately 14 buildings named after figures that racially targeted minority groups. The petition requested that historic Black individuals be honored instead, and one of them being Dr. Pinkie Gordon Lane.
The extensive debate over name changes at LSU seems like a “waiting game,” said Paris Lars, a sophomore Kinesiology major from Baton Rouge, La.
“It shouldn’t take that long to name the buildings after great leaders instead of naming them after people who don’t show positivity towards every race,” Lars added.
Although the recent decision may seem timely, African-American students are now urging the administration to address more important issues that concern them. Jalen Hinton, a senior mass communication major and member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated, said that the current name changes are only small acts of recognition, whereas more effort to support Black students is still needed.
“We need to move beyond simple symbolic changes,” Hinton said. “Actually addressing the material needs of Black students at LSU would be more impactful,” he added.
On the other hand, some students said they believe that this concern is only a mere reflection of systemic oppression in the U.S. Hope Hickerson, a graduate mass communication major, said that in order to ultimately achieve equality and equity at LSU, these issues need to first be addressed on a broader scale.
“Unfortunately, this is how America works,” Hickerson said.
When it comes to the university itself, Hickerson is hopeful about the future, but she realizes that progress takes time.
In the years to come, “there will be incremental steps of change,” Hickerson said. “Nothing happens overnight,” she added.
This article originally published in the January 9, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
