A university in Alabama has decided not to have the name of Bibb Graves, a former governor and the leader of a Ku Klux Klan group, adorn one of its campus buildings.
After initially deciding to name the College of Education building after both Graves and Autherine Lucy Hall, the school’s first black student, the University of Alabama Board of Trustees changed course, according to WIAT.
The Board of Trustees decided in a special meeting on Friday to remove Graves’s name from the building, citing his leadership role as Grand Cyclops with the hate group. Instead, it will stick with the name Autherine Lucy Hall.
“On the one hand, Gov. Graves is regarded by historians as one of, if not the most, progressive and effective governors in the history of the state of Alabama,” said Judge John England, a trustee of the board.
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While England praised Graves for his work as governor of Alabama and for doing more “to directly benefit African American Alabamians than any other governor through his many reforms,” he said it was unfortunate Graves had been “associated with the Ku Klux Klan.”
Hall began attending classes at the university on Feb. 3, 1956. Three days later, “riots and protests on campus” led to her being suspended, according to the Crimson White, the university’s student paper. Until 1963, no other black students were enrolled in the university.
“Many historians have concluded that Gov. Graves’s association with the KKK was a political maneuver in that it helped Gov. Graves along with certain allies such as Hugo Black build a coalition — which included labor unions, prohibitionists, and women’s suffrage advocates,” according to the student newspaper. These moves, among others, helped him win the gubernatorial election in 1926, the board said in their initial decision.
Graves went on to resign from the Ku Klux Klan in 1928.
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Troy University, another Alabama college, voted on Aug. 26, 2020, to rename one of its buildings that had also been named after Graves, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the University of Alabama for a statement but did not receive a response.
