Dan Smith
A Confederate Soldier statue sits on Roanoke County Property near West Hall.
Roanoke College’s new Center for Studying Structures of Race “will ensure a continuing institutional focus on racism and its pernicious effects in American society,” says Dr. Richard Smith, vice president and dean of the College.
The center will focus on ”historic and contemporary issues dealing with race and the legacies of slavery in modern American society,” according to a press release. It will examine forms of “institutional racism at local, national and international levels.”
The director of the new center is Jesse Bucher, PhD, an associate professor of history at Roanoke College, who says the center “will provide opportunities for students, faculty and staff to understand more deeply the legacies of racism, to discuss remedies to address them, and to take action to promote change.”
The opening of the Center for Studying Structures of Race has been a year-long process. It will be physically located in the former slave quarters of a residence built in 1853 and purchased by Roanoke College in 2002.
According to the release, Roanoke College did not own slaves, but the College’s earliest buildings — the Administration Building and Miller Hall — were constructed using slave labor.
"We need to have an honest and ongoing conversation about the College’s physical and financial heritage from slavery," says Bucher. "Just as importantly, we must use those conversations to reflect on our own present day. The goal of this Center is to teach and learn about and become compassionate about the ongoing presence of institutional racism in our society.”
A campus memorial to honor the enslaved workers who built the Administration Building and Miller Hall is being planned. The Center plans to host a variety of events open to the public, aimed at encouraging civic engagement and civil, informed debate.
A monument to Confederate soldiers stands at the corner of Main Street and College Avenue near Roanoke College’s West Hall, on a plot of land owned by Roanoke County. “It has been a major focal point for student conversations about the legacies of race,” Bucher says.
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).