Peculiar Institutions: The Challenges of Students Researching Slavery at Southern Universities

"Auburn University was only founded in 1856 as the East Alabama Male College and the first class of students matriculated in 1858. This gives Auburn a relatively short history during the Antebellum Era of legal enslavement compared to many other Southern universities. However, Auburn’s location on the edge of the Black Belt in East Alabama points to its deep ties to enslavement. In my time at Auburn, I have increasingly seen how deeply connected the university and town of the same name are inseparably tied to enslavement. Auburn has little separation between “town and gown”; the campus and town are almost one and the same. These intimate ties extend to slavery as well. Enslavers built the town and wealth of Auburn on the backs of Black labor, and this same labor and wealth were used to build the university. Until the past decade, there had been little scholarship that sought to examine the Black experience at Auburn. Today Auburn struggles to acknowledge this past in a substantive way and continues to have a problem enrolling and retaining Black students. Administrations at Auburn have promised over the past three decades to examine Auburn’s racial past, but the presence of the names of enslavers on university buildings speaks to the apathy or antipathy of the university to address its history. Current Black enrollment is only about six percent in a state that is more than a quarter Black. By uncovering the Black experience in early records of the universities and members of the board of trustees, as well as the four former plantations currently owned by the university, we can work to better understand our past and work to find real reconciliation as a university and community."