Photograph of Richard Furman Hall and the bell tower. Completed in 1854 on the Furman old campus in downtown Greenville, S.C., the building was originally known as the Main Building or 'Old Main.' It was renamed Richard Furman Hall in 1921. Built, in part, utilizing slave labor, after the trustees voted in 1850 to move the school from Winnsboro, S.C., to Greenville, S.C.

Through the discoveries made by the Task Force on Slavery and Justice, we have learned of instances where enslaved labor was used for the constructions of the Greenville campus through transactions between contractors and the Furman Building Committee. In the section "Constructing a Campus" of this exhibition, you can take a closer look at construction documents that indicate the use of "boys for work on building" or "negroes in making mortar." Such documents, however, do not specify if those "boys" or "negroes" were enslaved laborers, but we can assume that the conditions of their employment were unjust. For more details, please refer to Andrew Teye's article, "Slave Labor Discoveries at Furman's Downtown Campus".

In 1953, Furman University would make its final move and break ground on its current location. According to the Seeking Abraham Report, the move was in great part to the menacing growth of the Black population in the Greenville area. [find citation] address