Did you know that Furman University’s fifteen key founding funders and leaders in 1850 held in bondage an average of forty enslaved individuals a piece? Below is a list containing the names of donors and leaders in Furman's antebellum history, along with a record of their respective number of enslaved persons between 1830 and 1850. We see portrayed here a painful part of the history we have inherited, the history of how an institution is built in great part, by enslaved labor and plantation wealth. The legacy of this harsh reality still resonates for many of us on our campus. May this information serve as a path for us to recognize this history and to learn from it.

Source: Seeking Abraham Task Force Report, page 34