Intramural Center renamed for Bill Garrett
- Thread starter snowling
- Start date
Long overdue. Bill Garrett should have had a building named after him years ago.
Hope it’s not just because of current climate. If it is he, his family and friends deserve more. Hope it was in the works long before.
This has been in the works for a while. Wildermuth's name was removed two years ago.
https://president.iu.edu/speeches/s...mural-center-bill-garrett-racial-justice.html
McRobbie will be renaming more buildings.
It would be nice to get the history of each building they do rename and an explanation of why.
McRobbie will be renaming more buildings.
It would be nice to get the history of each building they do rename and an explanation of why.
If it’s been in the works for awhile, assuming close to two years now, the timing of the news release is impeccable. Perhaps they were waiting for this particular moment of social disturbance...this moment of CHANGE Like Never Before. Well played, IU, if so! Has this announcement attracted attention of the national news media? Bill’s family can lift their head’s high in pride as the Garrett name now lives forever on campus while Ora Wildermuth’s family now hangs their heads in shame with name now disgraced for and soon forgotten for making a racist comment. He once suggesting in a trustee’s board meeting that dorms on campus be kept segregated. No effort to include his rationale was given for this now egregious suggestion, uttered on public record way back in the 1940’s. It would be interesting to ask Wildermuth’s grandchildren for a statement, since everyone else gets to express their opinion so freely in this day and age. Or did they? Perhaps they did make a statement but the media chose not to listen so everyone else can’t listen.
I didn't know the Wildermuth name was added in 1971. Growing up in Bloomington, it was always the HPER building, before the renaming and after. Never heard anyone call it the Wildermuth building after the renaming, while I was on campus.
Reading about Wildermuth in an IDS story from 2007, I believe, I'd have to say I'm surprised this latest change didn't occur years ago.
I was at IU '69-'73 and only vaguely remember the Wildermuth name. It was still known to students as the HPER building, as you say. Regarding your statement about being surprised his name wasn't denounced sooner, remember the context of the times. I'm sure his vote to keep dorms segregated wasn't the outlandish thought then that it is today. Historical figures are being punished today by those of "higher morals" living in different realities. It's not the historical figure's fault that times have changed. It's like someone wearing "blackface" 40 years ago, portraying "Buckwheat" to a halloween party, not because someone did it to mock blacks, but because this particular "Little Rascal's" character was so adorable and loved by kids and adults who grew up watching this show. "Buckwheat" got laughs back then from both black and whites, believe it or not, for his funny comments. Today, people know not to do that. Forty years ago people didn't know that. Don't hold people accountable for something that was more acceptable in an earlier time. Hold them accountable for how they think in 2020. Everything changes in time and that's what people want.
Just asking, but wasn't it a little more than "one comment"?
Some of Ora's greatest hits:
“I am and shall always remain absolutely and utterly opposed to social intermingling of the colored race with the white,” Wildermuth wrote. “I belong to the white race and shall remain loyal to it. It always has been the dominant and leading race.”
He told former IU President Herman B Wells, in a letter from 1942, that a teacher who told a class “colored people are just as good or better than white people” should be fired.
"The average of the race as to intelligence, economic status and industry is so far below the white average that it seems to me futile to build up hope for a great future."
"I am and shall always remain absolutely and utterly opposed to social intermingling of the colored race with the white...the further we go in encouraging social relationships between the races the nearer we approach intermarriage and just as soon as colored blood is introduced the product becomes black, and if the white race is silly enough to permit itself to intermarry with the black and thereby by swallowed up, it really, of course, does not deserve perpetuity. If a person has as much as 1/16th colored blood in him, even though the other 15/16ths may be pure white, yet he is colored."
Thank you for the research. I was not aware of these other documented comments. I does seem a bit odd though, that the most influential man in IU administrative history, a man of "gaiety" himself" would allow such an honorable distinction in 1971, Wildermuth Intramural Center, to such a thoughtless man as Ora. Here was Herman B Wells, only three years removed from office of IU President since 1938 and IU's 1st Chancellor 1962-2000, so "offended" by these personal remarks of Ora's made to him that he chose to remain silent. If Wildermuth had a new building named after him because of his personal comments then, I can see wanting to change the name during these volatile times. Surely the man must have done some good work for the university. Does anyone know anything about this man other than he made racists comments deemed more objectionable 78 years later? It's not everyday someone gets a building named in their honor. Maybe his good works are best as well buried in history so today's holier than thou's can feel a sense of moral victory for another racist life squelched from memory. No offense meant here to those so easily offended by the savages we all once were.Just asking, but wasn't it a little more than "one comment"?
Some of Ora's greatest hits:
“I am and shall always remain absolutely and utterly opposed to social intermingling of the colored race with the white,” Wildermuth wrote. “I belong to the white race and shall remain loyal to it. It always has been the dominant and leading race.”
He told former IU President Herman B Wells, in a letter from 1942, that a teacher who told a class “colored people are just as good or better than white people” should be fired.
"The average of the race as to intelligence, economic status and industry is so far below the white average that it seems to me futile to build up hope for a great future."
"I am and shall always remain absolutely and utterly opposed to social intermingling of the colored race with the white...the further we go in encouraging social relationships between the races the nearer we approach intermarriage and just as soon as colored blood is introduced the product becomes black, and if the white race is silly enough to permit itself to intermarry with the black and thereby by swallowed up, it really, of course, does not deserve perpetuity. If a person has as much as 1/16th colored blood in him, even though the other 15/16ths may be pure white, yet he is colored."
I was just correcting your erroneous contention that Ora made "one suggestion" at a board meeting. I doubted it was true, and it took about 5 minutes of "research" to prove otherwise.
I wasn't trying to change your mind. I had a hunch that was not possible. I just wanted to set the record straight.
Thank you. I stand corrected and it actually feels pretty good. Shame on Ora! Shame on “abraxis”. We should have known better then, given what we both know now.
I will say this...it’s pretty obvious that we upgraded significantly.
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More people did think that way then. They were wrong to think that way; we are more moral now than they were then so that alone justifies changing the name. I'm not worried about his descendants; if they celebrated a building with the same name as theirs, now they can't. Just like, e.g., me. Big deal. If they didn't know what was hiding in the dark corners of their past, now they do. Some do genealogy and find horse thieves. Being famous involves risks.
My grandfather changed the spelling of our family's last name, adding an extra "e" because too many horse thieves in this particular area of North Carolina spelled the name with only one "e". I also learned we have chickensh*t in our family gene. One of my relatives hid out in a swamp to avoid fighting in the Civil War. His spirit haunts our family to this day, but what can I say? Well, give me a minute and maybe I'll tell you.
Personally, I don't know why people think they have to name public buildings/bridges/stretches of highways, etc after other people. It's become so political, like everything else. I imagine ego is involved somewhere and if not that, money. God help us if it's all three. Name these things something fun, not after a name of someone. After the dead person's grandkids die, no one cares, and even they barely cared with that grandparent being but a distant memory from their youth. Honor is fleeting. The same goes for graveyard monuments. That land in town is too valuable to be used for stone edifices commemorating someones's life now no longer remembered. Turn everyone to dust right away so their elements can be used for fertilizers to feed the poor. That's what people become anyway so why hide it in a box where it can't be utilized to help the living. I know this sounds cruel and callous, but it makes sense if you really stop and think about it. My wife has already been instructed to cast my sorry ass to the wind. If you don't like it, don't stand downwind. It's not rocket science. I speak from the heart with words never minced, but chopped.
