(jazzy piano music)
- [Dr. Harris] We're sitting in the former biology building
at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
This building sits on the grounds
of what once was a very large cemetery.
- [Dr. Green] And this was originally
the university burial grounds,
and it was created out of necessity.
It was the necessity of a death of a student.
His name was William Crawford,
and then it became a necessity for some
of the enslaved people who died here.
- [Dr. Harris] But the white people were buried separately
from the enslaved people who were here.
- [Dr. Green] There is a clear, distinct color line here
in which the widow of a faculty member,
the white students who die here,
they are separate in more cared for grave yard area
where the enslaved people buried here
were now underneath a parking lot
in a parking garage in unmarked graves.
- [Dr. Harris] So today what remains
are markers and a fenced in area.
- [Dr. Green] What survives is the family plot
of a former faculty member.
But now it's not known as the family plot
of this white faculty member.
It is known as the slave burial grounds.
- [Dr. Harris] What's especially interesting is the marker
that names two enslaved people who worked here on campus
and also notes an apology.
- [Dr. Green] That's what's interesting
because they're noted on the marker,
but they're not buried where that enclosed space is.
They are buried nearby,
but it's their burial that leads to that apology
because without Jack Rudolph, without William Boysey Brown,
and without the notation of the second president
of the university who owned both Jack and William Boysey,
the apology would not happen.
And that marker would not have happened.
- [Dr. Harris] And the two enslaved people
each have two names.
- [Dr. Green] And those names are interesting
because in the records they're Jack, they're William Boysey,
but at death is when they get a last name
of Rudolph and Brown, and it's not the last names
that they might've adopted for themselves,
but who formerly owned them
before President Manly became their main enslaver.
So why at death and why in the apology marker
are we putting the names of the enslavers,
rather just Jack and William Boysey,
those were the names they were known by
on campus by other enslaved people.
- [Dr. Harris] The marker also notes
that they were owned by the university itself.
- [Dr. Green] And it's really Manly
who's the longest serving president at the university
who owned both of those individuals,
so that they did not put the person
who directly enslaved them on that marker.
And they apologize without
acknowledging the true history there,
but at least acknowledging not only that there was slavery,
but the names of the two enslaved people.
That becomes a path forward
to reconciliation that they started,
and that's important.
- [Dr. Harris] I know you take students
and the public on tours.
When students walk around the campus,
what's your sense of their experience of the burial ground?
- [Dr. Green] Most of them did not know it was here,
but then what they like about it is finding
the names of the enslaved people,
cause that is the only place that they're named.
And to have those names
instead of rented slaves or just slaves,
they liked that.
They're upset about Rudolph and Brown,
but the fact that Jack and William Boysey is there,
the fact that there's an apology and the date
to that apology and a recognition
that this history occurred, they appreciate that
and then they usually try to pick up the weeds
and clean it up like you would to a normal cemetery.
We need to honor these men,
even though they weren't buried in that enclosure,
this marker's marking their space,
and honor them in the present by this generation
that they are no longer nameless.
They are known.
(jazzy piano music)