Hollins History
This presentation took place on Leading Equity, Diversity, and Justice Day Presentation (October 23)
Members of the group discussed the history of Black lives at Hollins, starting with the enslaved people whose labor sustained the campus during its early days and the school’s historic connection to their descendants and also including first and notable Black students, faculty and administrators. The presentation focused on current and ongoing projects, including a procedure for renaming campus buildings, and work done in class by Hollins students, including the beginnings of a walking tour.
View “Unveiling the Past: Reckoning with Our History of Enslavement“, a virtual exhibit created by Hollins University students in the spring 2020 Cultural Property, Rights and Museum course. The exhibit was to be presented in the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum April 2020, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic it was moved online. The students developed “Unveiling the Past” in conjunction with members of the Working Group on Slavery and Its Contemporary Legacies: Visiting Assistant Professor Ashleigh Breske, who taught the course; Eleanor D. Wilson Museum Director Jenine Culligan, and Archivist and Special Collections Librarian Beth Harris. The exhibit examines objects and images held by the University Archives in the Wyndham Robertson Library at Hollins.
“Hollins Grapples with History of Enslavement in Virtual Exhibit” by Alia Boyd (The Roanoker, 2/22/21)
In April 2019, then- Hollins President Pareena Lawrence decided to temporarily remove online access to some issues of The Spinster, the Hollins yearbook, from the Hollins Digital Commons. These documents have since been restored. Read more.
Blackface: a Guide to Educational Information created by the Working Group and the Library.
On Hollins Day, February 23, 2017, the Working Group presented “Voices from Our Past”: