Davidson to keep name of slave owner on campus building. School president explains why

Davidson College’s central academic building will continue to bear the name of a man who enslaved people, the college announced Tuesday.

The college decided to keep the Chambers building, named after Maxwell Chambers, after a lengthy examination into how the school could both acknowledge its ties to slavery while also preserving a portion of its own history.

Doug Hicks, Davidson College president, said the school’s Board of Trustees backed a recommendation from the school’s Committee on Acknowledgment and Naming to keep the name despite apparent complications and conflicts.

Among them, the school itself is named after William Lee Davidson, a general who fought during the Revolutionary War and was believed to have enslaved people.

“For me, it’s about the fact that the whole college is involved and complicit in the institution of slavery, and to take one name off, while not taking all the names off seems inconsistent,” Hicks told The Charlotte Observer in an interview before the school’s announcement.

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“To take the name off would run against the obligation to acknowledge the fact that slavery was a part of our founding and that we continued it into an era of segregation after that.”

Another complication is that Chambers, who was not a student, left $250,000 to the college upon his death in 1855. The gift — equivalent to $9.1 million today — was considered the largest donation at the time to a southern college and is believed to have saved it from possibly closing.

Chambers’ name has adorned the building that first opened in 1860 but burned during a fire in 1921. The college opened a replacement building in 1930 but kept the Chambers name, according to school records.

To take the name off the building, or explore removing any others, would essentially “erase the first 25 years of our history,” said Hicks, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Davidson in 1990.

Who is Maxwell Chambers?

Chambers, born in Salisbury in 1780, was a planter, money lender and cotton trader.

While he was not a high-profile figure, Chambers derived his wealth through the slave trade, according to a portion of a 12-page report written by Dr. Hilary Green, a historian and Africana studies professor appointed by Davidson to investigate Chambers’ life and ties to the school.

“He bought, sold and owned enslaved individuals,” Green wrote. “He accumulated his fortune off of the labor of enslaved people on plantations he owned through foreclosure and in a factory that he owned in Salisbury. His reliance upon slavery made possible his philanthropy to Davidson College and to the Presbyterian Church.”

Following Chambers’ gift to Davidson, the college ultimately became the holder of several enslaved people, the report said.

Davidson trustees sold a Salisbury factory, which had been gifted in the Chambers estate, to representatives of the Confederacy. The building became a Confederate prison during the Civil War.

Prior to his death, Chambers freed 19 enslaved people and paid for their travel to Oberlin, Ohio. Though records indicated that Chambers freed an additional 29 slaves upon his death, Green wrote, “he left dozens of other human beings enslaved and bequeathed them as property to relatives and friends.”

Davidson examined itself before decision

Davidson’s journey to this decision started in 2017 when then-President Carol Quillen wanted to confront its historical relationship with race at a time in which there was a national reckoning over symbols of slavery and the Confederacy, including a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that year.

“To seek a full understanding of the college’s history concerning slavery and race is to honor our commitment to the quest for truth as we strive to prepare students for thoughtful, creative lives of leadership in service to humanity,” Quillen said then.

A campus Commission on Race and Slavery made up of Davidson students, alumni, community members and faculty formed to help develop research projects and teach initiatives around the subjects. It was led by Davidson alum Anthony Foxx, a former U.S. transportation secretary and Charlotte mayor.

In 2020, the commission released a report suggesting building names on campus should be examined, and recommended the school take Chambers’ name off the building. What Green uncovered about Chambers and others associated with the college in its early days was “deeply troubling” and “gut-wrenching,” Hicks said.

“The very topic of slavery and the reality that Davidson College was inextricably tied to the institution of slavery at its founding is deeply wrenching and is very painful to everyone at Davidson to name that reality,” he said. “That just shows the implications of the fact that most of our faculty, trustees, and presidents were slaveholders until the Civil War.”

A high bar established to remove ‘central figure’

The Committee on Acknowledgment and Naming and the Board of Trustees were charged with weighing several factors to determine whether to remove his name.

That included examining possible harm caused by leaving or retaining the name, how offensive or wrong the person’s conduct was, and the figure’s relevance to the college’s history.

The more central the person was to school, the higher the bar would be to recommend name removal, Hicks said. Chambers was among the most important people in Davidson’s history.

“I would say without any irony or sarcasm, after William Davidson, the namesake Chambers is probably the most central figure in the founding of the college,” Hicks said. “And so to take that name off cuts to the identity of who Davidson is as an institution.”

The school also considered interviews Green conducted with 10 descendants of Chambers’ slaves. They implored Davidson not to remove the name because doing so would symbolically erase them.

“They basically said, ‘Don’t erase us,’” said Hicks. “And we believe that taking the name off the building would be a kind of an erasure not only of the name that Maxwell Chambers had but those who are descendants — white and Black — of Chambers himself.”

Though Davidson has apologized for supporting slavery during its first 30 years of existence, Chambers’ place in Davidson’s history seemed to solicit strong opinions.

Hicks said school officials received pushback during on-campus discussion sessions from people who expressed that students, staff, and faculty shouldn’t have to reference Chambers or be forced to gather in a building named after a slaveholder.

There were renewed calls for the removal of Confederate symbols and names at Davidson and elsewhere after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020. Nearly 1,000 supporters signed a Change.org petition calling for Davidson to rename the Chambers building that year.

“Chambers building must be renamed. Some may argue that to erase Maxwell Chambers’ name from campus is to erase history,” a portion of the petition written by an unidentified author stated. “It is unconscionable to have our students, faculty, and staff work, study, and learn in a building honoring an agent of white supremacy and a slaveowner — a building originally constructed with clay bricks molded by the hands of North Carolinian slaves.”

Working toward reconciliation

Hicks acknowledged some Davidson community members will focus only on the name staying. But he hopes all will be equally invested in the work the college has done to take steps toward reconciliation.

In March, Hicks announced plans for a memorial to honor the enslaved people who helped build the college. A bronze sculpture will be placed among four campus buildings made from the mid-1800s era bricks used to construct the school, the Observer reported.

The memorial, named “With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited,” is expected to be completed in 2025.

Beyond that, Davidson added a committee on racial reconciliation. The college is committing $100,000 annually to research its founders and their possible ties to slavery. The school will soon announce a summer program for marginalized youths as well as other efforts.

“It is my hope that people would judge the college where we are now,” said Hicks. “That we are and aspire to be a world-class, national liberal arts college located in the South who are honest and committed to understanding our history.”