Alvarez College Union and Football Field
Alvarez College Union and Football Field The Alvarez College Union was originally built in 1948 to serve as the college’s Johnston gym. On football Saturdays during the 1950s and 1960s, the Confederate flag was flown alongside the other flags in the gym. Dixie, commonly understood to be the unofficial Confederate anthem, was played at football games during this time, at least once regardless of the outcome and often twice if Davidson was the winning team. It is unclear for how long the band had been playing Dixie following the Civil War, but because the band was independent of the college at this time, the administration could not require that they stop. Requests in the 1960s that Dixie be removed from the band’s repertoire were met with severe pushback from many, as outlined in several Davidsonian articles in the college’s archives; the band did not stop playing the song until 1966 or 1968 at the official request of the college (Yi and Mellin 2018).In 1937, Davidson music professor James C. Pfohl created a halftime show for the college football games entitled “the Playful Pickaninnies.” The event included two local Black children identified as Sleepy and Jac spreading cotton on the field and then collecting it in baskets (Yi and Mellin 2018). The image of the “pickaninny” is a racist caricature of and slur for Black children that has a long history in the United States (Pilgrim 2012), and the choice of simulating cotton-picking demonstrates a clear example of plantation nostalgia. This show lasted well into the 1950s, reportedly until visiting students from Princeton objected (Yi and Mellin 2018).
Dean Rusk Office
Dean Rusk OfficeToday Duke Hall includes a dormitory and the Dean Rusk International Studies Office, which is located in a portion of the building named by Carole and Marcus Weinstein (as pictured here).Dean Rusk was an alum of the college (Class of 1931) and the Secretary of State for United States Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, between 1961 and 1969. Rusk was instrumental in United States intervention in Vietnam and the continuation of the Vietnam war, and worked hard to avoid accountability for the violence that ensued (Yi and Mellin 2018). Rusk was a strong proponent of Agent Orange, an herbicide that was used as a severe chemical weapon against people in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (Ibid.; History.com 2011). Rusk was also instrumental in threatening sanctions against Ghana’s first democratically elected president Kwame Nkrumah (Pohl 2016, 13-14), and was likely an instigator of the coup that eventually unseated Nkrumah in 1966 (Ibid.). He began his partnership with Davidson College in 1983 as the benefactor of the International Studies Program (Sherbine 1999, 9), and Rusk Eating House was named in his honor in 1995 (Moretz 1995, 4). Today, the college still uses these program funds to sponsor students to study abroad in countries that Dean Rusk was responsible for destabilizing, but to date there has been no known formal acknowledgment by the college of his role in these or other international atrocities.
Lula Bell's and RLO
Lula Bell’s and RLOFrom 1925 to 2015, the building that now hosts Lula Bell’s Resource Center and the Residence Life office was the college laundry (Washburn 2014). Black women did laundry and other washing for the college throughout the 19th century (Lingle 1947, 23) and well into the 1970s, as Black women in 20th century Davidson were often restricted to domestic-style work (Anonymous Interview 2000, 19). The building was converted in 2014-2015 when the college stopped offering its laundry service.On September 28th in 2003, the slogan “KKK” was spray-painted in 2-3 locations on the walkway and exterior walls of the laundry building. Student Mbye Njie photographed the writing to ensure there would be a record, and observed countless White classmates pass by the site without any acknowledgment or visible reaction. Two weeks later, Njie wrote an article in the Davidsonian discussing that experience and decrying the school’s lack of response and inability to adequately deal with this and other racist incidents. He ended the article with the following:“To be honest, I cannot even fathom telling prospective students to come to this school. I have seen how the school has reacted to actual acts of racism and not just signs and symbols of prejudice and hate. How am I supposed to also support and sell a school that is elated to have a 5.8 percent African-American population in their freshman class?” (Njie 2003, 8).
Sparrow's Nest
Sparrow’s NestPatrick J. Sparrow, a prominent fundraiser for and professor at the college, owned the land currently located behind Belk dormitory and used it to establish the Sparrow house where he lived with his four daughters (Williams 1961).Among other sources, a 1961 Davidsonian article confirms that enslaved people were kept in the building currently known as the Sparrow's Nest - although called “servants” in the article, as Presbyterian tradition dictated, the building is identified multiple times as “slave quarters” and was located here because Sparrow allegedly “could not, of course, get along without his servants.” (Ibid.). The 1850 census lists Sparrow as claiming at least 11 enslaved people, and the 1860 census shows he claimed at least 9 (Bertholf 2018). Although the language of the Davidsonian article is confusing, it seems that the original Sparrow home was called the Sparrow’s Nest, and this developed the same name as the main house over time (Williams 1961). The building was eventually purchased by the college in 1908 and became a boarding house, a storage space, the location of campus security, and eventually the Physical Plant and Sustainability office it holds today (Yi and Mellin 2018). While newer structures such as the college well and the war memorial are marked as “Historic Sites” on official Davidson College maps, this building receives no such identification.
