Alice Vol. 6 No. 1

of Trustees must honor the lives of those who were
enslaved on UA’s campus, specifically when we are
talking about renaming buildings,” Shipman said.
She recalls one of the reasons that she decided to
attend the University was because of “its racist past and
present.”
“I felt I was called to help create real institutional
change from policies to practices and even traditions,”
Shipman said. “While there, I’ve gotten to work
alongside many freedom fighters...I believe that this
is just the beginning of truly creating a country that
represents the people. Shoutout to my ancestors and
fellow freedom fighters.”
For decades, students, faculty and staff have found
their own ways to contribute to awareness and progress.
Shipman organized movements such as Bama Sits, Wake
Up Bama and We are Done. A coalition of students and
faculty, We are Done released a list of demands to be
met by University administration in 2015. Their second
demand called for the removal of the names of white
supremacists, Klan members, Confederate generals and
Eugenicists. The demands of the coalition can be found
with a quick Google search. Shipman sees the demands
as “still unmet or met but with the bare minimum.”
Liz Foshe, a graduate student and teaching assistant
of Gender & Race Studies, felt like now was a good time
to push for change at UA again.
“Essentially, there were two petitions circulating: one
to change the racist building names at UA, and one to
remove the confederate monuments from campus,”
Foshe said.“Petitions like these have been going around
for years since before I came to UA, but with everything
going on with the Black Lives Matter protests all over
the world, now seemed like the right time to really put
pressure on UA to make change.”
Foshe met with a fellow student, Anna Beth Peters,
and together they created an email campaign. This
consisted of creating a pre-written email that could
The University of
Alabama System
Board of Trustees
voted unanimously
on August 5 to
rename Nott Hall
to Honors Hall.
[Photographer] Hannah Saad
[ 29 ]