A year ago today, the LSU Board of Supervisors approved a resolution to remove Troy H. Middleton’s name from the university library, now known as LSU library.
Middleton was a former LSU president from 1951 to 1962, and advocated against desegregation during his time as president of the university.
Three years after Alexander “A.P.” Tureaud Jr. became the first black undergraduate student admitted to LSU in 1953, Middleton wanted to review “the Negro situation” and presented a report to the Board of Supervisors titled “LSU and Segregation.”
“[The University] has [admitted black students] reluctantly, under court order,” Middleton said in the report. “While there are some 117 Negroes enrolled at LSU, the historic policy of the University is not to admit Negroes. It is unlikely that there will be any change in this policy.”
Middleton also authored a letter to former University of Texas Chancellor Henry Ransom in 1961 saying that LSU aimed to maintain separation between white and Black students.
“Our Negro students have made no attempt to attend social functions, participate in athletic contests, go in the swimming pool, etc. If they did, we would, for example, discontinue the operation of the swimming pool.” Middleton wrote. “At no time has a Negro occupied a room with a white student. We keep them in a given area.”
Last year, a petition to rename the library made by LSU students Exquisite Williams, Kendall Diiulio and Calvin Morris gained over 13,000 signatures.
“I think it’s important that a lot of people realize that the naming of things cements a legacy, and if you don’t understand the history of that legacy you don’t understand what it entails,” Williams said. “You can’t have a campus that’s filling up with black students and votes diversity while still having buildings with names that never wanted that diversity to exist.”
The petition called for the library to renamed after Pinkie Gordon Lane, the University’s first Black female Ph.D. graduate, but the university announced the library’s interim name would be LSU Library until a permanent name was found by a search committee.
“Once the naming committee selects the permanent name, it will go before the LSU Board of Supervisors for approval,” the university announced.
Two months after the removal of Middleton’s name from LSU Library, a 16-person Building Name Evaluation Committee was announced by LSU Interim President Thomas Galligan.
The committee is composed of LSU students, faculty, staff and alumnae. Members will review and study campus building names to determine if they are “symbols or monuments to racism.”
The family of Troy Middleton filed a lawsuit against the university Monday seeking the return of his military memorabilia, currently housed in the university’s William A. Brookshire Military Museum, set to open Veteran’s Day.
Middleton’s family also requested monetary compensation for the “extreme humiliation and embarrassment” of the university’s labeling of Middleton as a racist, but the family is not interested in punishing the Board of Supervisors for removing his name from the library, according to the family’s lawyer Jill Craft.
The Middleton family has come to LSU several times to collect the Middleton Collection, but LSU raised “several differing excuses” about why they could not give the collection to the family, according to the lawsuit.
LSU responded April 14 saying the university would keep “approximately one-half” of the collection.