‘With Their Hands, This Place Was Made’: Davidson College Dedicates Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited

In her 60 years at Davidson College, Lula Bell Houston washed students’ clothes, sheets and towels, carefully setting aside the money, pens and keys she’d find in their pockets to return to them with their clean laundry.

Fred Deese mowed lawns, planted trees and trimmed hedges as a groundskeeper. As a janitor, he mopped, vacuumed, washed windows and emptied trash cans. His wife, Janie, served as a maid to presidents and professors, carefully dusting family mementos and preparing guest rooms.

They’re among the many Black workers, unknown and known, whose contributions went unacknowledged across the college’s history, from enslavement during the college’s 1837 founding through Jim Crow laws that prohibited them from voting or owning property and kept their wages low.

On Thursday, hundreds of people gathered between buildings built from bricks bearing the thumbprints of enslaved laborers for a ceremony dedicating a new memorial in their honor. With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited serves as a place to remember and reflect upon those whose labor helped build the college and serve its students and faculty.

Listen to author Clint Smith read the poem:

Ruby Houston, a retired educator, administrator and community leader, said she felt a sense of awe when she first saw the monument, and felt the weight of what it represents.

“People were mistreated, they were paid unfairly; it’s been a lot,” she said. Her many family members who worked at the college include her now 100-year-old mother, Bernice. “It gives me hope that we’re finally acknowledging what our reality was during those times.” 

Davidson is adding to its history. The college is recognizing those who helped build the campus — a central role in its founding — who were left out of that history, bringing these community members from across the centuries into its narrative timeline, President Doug Hicks ’90 said.

“These reverential hands face skyward, calling us to live by the better angels of our nature,” Hicks said. “May we open our own hands and our hearts today to honor the whole people of Davidson College.”

Like Davidson, many institutions across the United States have examined their history of slavery and the persistence of racial discrimination during the Reconstruction, Jim Crow and segregation eras. In 2020, then-President Carol Quillen publicly apologized for the college’s past actions after the extensive research of Davidson’s Commission on Race and Slavery. The commission’s recommendations included a memorial. 

The college has aimed to build on what is learned of the past to guide the path forward. Davidson has hired new professors, expanded courses and community programs and launched student and faculty research. It’s transforming the nearby Beaver Dam farmhouse where enslaved people once labored into a research and learning laboratory that will eventually open to the public.

Students, professors and archivists continue to pore over public records, letters, diaries, college ledgers and year books, visit cemeteries, and talk to families to learn more about the lives of the enslaved and exploited workers. 

Many formerly enslaved people with few options continued working at Davidson after slavery ended, and their families’ lives remained intertwined with the college.

Castella Conner’s family counts more than 250 years of service to Davidson over four generations. They touched every corner of campus, from painting dorm rooms and classrooms to repairing failing equipment and keeping flowers blooming. 

Among those planning to attend the dedication is Robert Adair, a New Jersey physician and descendent of enslaved workers who helped build the college. His mother, the late Thelma Davidson Adair, became the college’s first Black trustee in 1983.

“She cherished her relationship with Davidson College,” Robert Adair, 82, said in a recent interview. “She was exceedingly proud of her Davidson heritage and the way both sides, (Black and white) of that family came together. She was proud of Davidson and where it was going.”

“It means a lot,” she said of the memorial. “There are still a lot of problems in the world. You’ll always have those ‘antiques’ who don’t like how far we’ve come, but I feel like this is a good step.”

Striving for Better Days

Delores Deese Black grew up with Davidson as a constant presence in her family’s life. Her parents worked long hours at the college. After work and on weekends, Fred Deese ran a landscaping business with his sons. Janie took on housekeeping jobs in town.

All of their children, except for a daughter with Down Syndrome, went to college and led successful careers in business, social work, education and public health. Four earned graduate degrees.  

Last year, Black’s daughter, Shannon Coleman, dedicated her doctoral dissertation to her grandparents. 

“They placed the value and importance of obtaining an education on my mother and her siblings,” she wrote. “Continuing the legacy of living out their hopes and dreams is my deepest honor.”

Black’s brother, Willie Deese, and Coleman represented their family at the ceremony. They feel a deep connection to what the memorial represents. 

Tending the Laundry

As a little girl and the youngest of four children, Loria Houston would go to work with her mom, Lula Bell, when she didn’t have a family member or friend available to babysit. 

Lula Bell Houston woke up at 4:15 a.m., cooked her family breakfast, then headed to the college’s laundry room to start work at 6 a.m. On Saturdays, she cleaned and did laundry at local homes.

It was a hard life, yet many friendships formed and deepened at the college. Lula Bell Houston and laundry room coworkers often sang as they washed, dried, ironed and folded. They called themselves “The Launderettes.”