Furman University home page
Furman's Legacy of Slavery: A Digital Exhibition: Founding a University-SCBC
The South Carolina Baptist Convention (SCBC), a partnership of church leaders across the state established Furman’s original campus in Edgefield, S.C., about 60 miles southwest of the capital city of Columbia.
Richard Furman, the namesake of our institution, served as the inaugural president of the first nationwide Baptist organization, the Triennial Convention, then move on to become the first president of the SCBC. Furman, as many of the leaders of the SCBC, held a White-centric ideology on slavery that would put the enslaver and the enslaved in a reciprocal relationship for the sake of keeping society in harmony.
If we align the powers the SCBC held over the Furman Academic and Theological Academy with the Christian slavery worldview held by many of its leaders, we could begin to understand just how an oppressive status quo is preserved. Can we imagine the potential correlations between the founding, funding, and the localization of an educational institution and the institution of slavery?
South Carolina Baptist Resolution
Furman University Special Collections and Archives
This initial set of meeting minutes discloses the composition and charge of the committee that would be "selecting a site, be requested to make all necessary inquiries, with respect to the price of brick, of other materials of building, and of workmen, in order to facilitate the operations of the Board when they meet."
South Carolina Baptist Convention, 1825-26
Furman University Special Collections & Archives
Explore FurtherHere's a partial transcription of the first four resolutions resolved by the SCBC:
The Committee appointed to prepare a set of Rules for the Government of the Academical and Theological Seminary, to be established at Edgefield Court-House, South-Carolina, Report the following, viz:
1. This Seminary shall be named “The Furman Academy and Theological Institution.”
2. It shall be under the general direction of the State Convention, of the Baptist denomination in South-Carolina; who alone shall have power to alter or amend these rules.
3. The more immediate management of the Seminary shall be committed to the Board of Agents of the Convention...
4.The Board shall have power to appoint and remove the Principal of the Seminary and the Professors in the various departments, but the Assistants of the Principal shall be employed, renumerated and dismissed by himself. The Board shall fix the salaries of the Principals and Professors, prescribe the course of studies, and the rate of tuition, grant certificates to those who shall have completed the regular course of instruction...