Colin McKnight
Witherspoon Student Center, where theTechnician offices are, is named after Augustus M. Witherspoon, an adviser and enthusiastic community leader here at NC State. Lee Residence Hall, where I lived last school year, is named after Major General William Carey Lee, who was an influential leader in the ROTC program, and is nicknamed the “Father of the Airborne.”
Talley Student Union is named after Banks C. Talley Jr., a vice chancellor of student affairs here at NC State for over five decades. His mission, as his memoriam on the NC State website best put it, “. . .was to encourage students from all backgrounds to focus on all aspects of a college education, from academics to athletics to a variety of cultural activities that he helped attract from all over the world.”
Tompkins Hall is named after Daniel Augustus Tompkins, who argued the place of black people in America as laborers and the inferiority of black workers compared to white workers, and opposed child labor laws.
Let’s back up a little bit and talk more about Tompkins, the man. An engineer and industrialist, Daniel Augustus Tompkins (1851-1914) did much of his work in the cotton industry. The NC State webpage for Tompkins Hall praises all of the engineer’s accomplishments, but doesn’t bring up much else. It goes on and on about how the building is named after someone who should be recognized for his “advocacy for the establishment of textile schools at Clemson and NC State” and about his building of hundreds of cotton and cottonseed-oil mills, but it stays silent on Tompkins’ character.
Yes, all those feats are very impressive, but that’s only a fraction of the man’s full story.
My calling Tompkins a racist is not just a wild accusation or guesswork based on a couple odd excerpts from the man. He himself clearly outlined his own ideologies in his works. In his preface for “Cotton Mill: Commercial Features,” Tompkins clearly states his opinion on the work that had been done thus far for abolition and civil rights: “The abolitionists went too far past the point of reasonable good judgment.” He stated in the preface that the abolitionists’ work to gain equality for African-Americans caused a disruption in the U.S.: “Nothing prospered in the quarter of a century through which this lasted.”
Furthermore, on pages 47 and 48 of his work “Cotton and Cotton Oil,” Tompkins argues that the black person “readily submits to the master hand, admires it, and even loves it. Left to his own resources and free to act as his mind or emotions dictate, no man can foresay what he is liable to do.” He then goes on to describe how slaves of certain skin colors and countries of origin are naturally superior to others, and better suited for certain types of labor over others. This is the man Tompkins Hall is named after.
Tompkins wasn’t a big fan of child labor laws either. As Dan L. Morrill wrote, “As were the other powerful industrialists of his type and time, Tompkins was committed to laissez-faire capitalism and opposed public reforms for better industrial working conditions including the regulation of child labor.” In other words, he was just another example of an early American industrialist putting capitalism over conditions. Once again, this is the man Tompkins Hall is named after.
Thus, with all that being said, it’s time for Tompkins Hall to get a new name, and there are a lot of great alternatives. A lot of NC State sports legends are great options, such as Yow Hall or Valvano Hall. Of course, if the university wanted to rename the building after someone more involved in NC State’s creation and history, that would be great too. The point is, whatever they pick, they must do a bit more research on who that person truly was, not just their famous achievements.
I wish I could say this is the only instance on NC State campus of a building being named after a disreputable individual, but I can’t. Last year, guest columnist J Hallen wrote an op-ed for Technician about the man that Daniels Hall is named after. As Hallen put it, “Daniels supported the KKK, was highly influential in a 1900 suffrage amendment that disenfranchised most black individuals in the state, was key in a late-1890s campaign to appeal to racist sentiment among white voters and was known as an instigator of the Wilmington race riots.”
Yet, despite all that terrible history being brought to light, Daniels Hall remains Daniels Hall. And Tompkins Hall will probably remain Tompkins Hall for a long time to come. We shouldn’t push history aside, or be selective in what we heed. We should refuse to accept all history and historical figures as extraordinary and perfect, and search for accuracy despite existing admiration. The movement to tear down the monuments and flags of a more ignorant era has already started. We can’t stop now.