--- title: Georgetown's New Building Names Won't Erase Slavery Ties description: Claiming the power to invent names responds to a past in which that power was denied canonical: https://time.com/4119635/georgetowns-new-building-names-wont-erase-slavery-ties/ author: Margaret Williamson article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-19T18:20:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T12:45:10.417Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Georgetown's New Building Names Won't Erase Slavery Ties og:description: We can't ignore the past og:url: https://time.com/4119635/georgetowns-new-building-names-wont-erase-slavery-ties/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fcf8a83d936919e/698871f1cf40a85c37c40be3/georgetown-university.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 13: Around 30 students sit in in fron og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Georgetown's New Building Names Won't Erase Slavery Ties twitter:description: We can't ignore the past twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fcf8a83d936919e/698871f1cf40a85c37c40be3/georgetown-university.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Georgetown's New Building Names Won't Erase Slavery Ties by [Margaret Williamson](https://time.com/author/margaret-williamson/) ## Margaret Williamson Nov 19, 2015 6:20 PM UTC  Around 30 students sit in in front of the office of John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University in Washington D.C. on Nov. 13, 2015\. The sit in was in solidarity with other student protests throughout the country addressing racial discrimination on campus, including at University of Missouri and Yale University. The students also demanded the change of the name of Mulledy Hall on campus. Around 30 students sit in in front of the office of John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University in Washington D.C. on Nov. 13, 2015\. The sit in was in solidarity with other student protests throughout the country addressing racial discrimination on campus, including at University of Missouri and Yale University. The students also demanded the change of the name of Mulledy Hall on campus.Astrid Riecken—The Washington Post/Getty Images by [Margaret Williamson](https://time.com/author/margaret-williamson/) ## Margaret Williamson Nov 19, 2015 6:20 PM UTC This week Georgetown University [announced plans](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/georgetown-university-to-rename-two-buildings-that-reflect-schools-ties-to-slavery/2015/11/15/e36edd32-8bb7-11e5-acff-673ae92ddd2b%5Fstory.html) to rename two of its buildings, Mulledy and McSherry Halls, named after school presidents involved in the sale of slaves in the 1830s. They will be known as Freedom Hall and Remembrance Hall until permanent new names are chosen. Will new names really foreground that history of slavery? The move to rename the buildings has some strong precedents. Place names often commemorate the history and culture of dominant groups: Consider Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown plantation, Thomas Jefferson’s Italian-sounding Monticello, or George Washington’s Mount Vernon, named after a general in the successful siege of Cartagena. More disturbing, slaveowners also used renaming to claim ownership of their human property. The 18th century Virginia planter Robert “King” Carter admonished his overseer to take “care that the negros both men and women I sent … always go by the names we gave them.” Their newly-imposed names usually echoed the owners’ European identity. Enslaved people might be named after English cities (London, Bristol, Lincoln), or characters from English literature (Hamlet, Juliet) or classical antiquity (Solon, Caesar, Nero, Caesar, Pompey, Mars, Venus, Dido). Names like these concealed an unpleasant joke at slaves’ expense. Deprived of power, such names set them up to seem deficient in understanding: these “poor ignorant creatures,” the thinking went, did not even know what their own names meant. Along the way, these singular names tried to erase both the culture the slaves came from and their family networks. So do new names erase the past? Quite possibly the opposite. In an odd way, a newly-minted name also speaks to the power of tradition. Asserting the power not just to choose but to invent your name responds to a past in which that power was denied. Earlier this year a [Duke professor argued](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/18/duke-professor-jerry-hough-african-americans-comments) that African Americans were to blame for their own segregation, citing their habit of giving unusual names to children and exhorting them to work harder to overcome their historical disadvantages. But his comments only revealed his own ignorance: those names _were_ a repudiation of their disadvantaged past. There is no simple answer to the question of what to call the Georgetown buildings. What matters is opening up the question and the history behind it. Coming at a time when racism in America is under renewed and intense scrutiny, this is a reminder of a battle that is not yet finished. Whatever happens in Georgetown, we need to make sure that the right side wins. Again. _Margaret Williamson is an emeritus professor at Dartmouth College. She wrote this commentary for the Op-Ed project, a social venture to increase the range of voices we hear._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4119635/georgetowns-new-building-names-wont-erase-slavery-ties/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4119635/georgetowns-new-building-names-wont-erase-slavery-ties/"},"headline":"Georgetown's New Building Names Won't Erase Slavery Ties","datePublished":"2015-11-19T18:20:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T12:45:10.417Z","description":"Claiming the power to invent names responds to a past in which that power was denied","url":"https://time.com/4119635/georgetowns-new-building-names-wont-erase-slavery-ties/","keywords":["History","Race"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fcf8a83d936919e/698871f1cf40a85c37c40be3/georgetown-university.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Margaret Williamson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/margaret-williamson/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fcf8a83d936919e/698871f1cf40a85c37c40be3/georgetown-university.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 13: Around 30 students sit in in fron","caption":"Around 30 students sit in in front of the office of John J. 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