America is a country with a disturbing past, but we will have next to no future if we continue to sweep our history under the rug, never to be acknowledged again, thereby dooming ourselves to fall victim to the same missteps as those who came before us.

It is of the utmost importance that Furman University and its students take a stand against these things, and it starts with confronting our messy, racist history so that we may eventually dismantle the tools and mechanisms of white supremacy in order to make Furman University a place that produces equality, instead of one that reproduces inequality.

We are all currently living in a period of great political turmoil. A time where, all across the country, “woke” education and DEI are being attacked by lawmakers and government leaders under the plainly transparent veil of “not upsetting children,” “telling the truth,” or “preventing anti-white racism.” Universities are gutting their Africana studies programs, and affirmative action has been eviscerated by the highest court in the land.

But all that means is that our jobs have just barely begun.

As students, as faculty, as administration, as community members, it is our duty to thrust Furman University’s messy history into the limelight, and it is paramount that the university actually works to address its past and present inequalities with real, material change.

This is why projects like Placing Furman are so important, especially when they are the most under attack; real, positive change starts by speaking truth to power and challenging the common narrative that is reinforced, whether consciously or unconsciously, by Furman University’s image.

The current political moment that is putting truth, research, and the pursuit of education in jeopardy should not make people shy away from their academic aspirations. Because with every Placing Furman, with every Seeking Abraham, with every other future endeavor that Furman faculty and students partake in, and with every future action that those research projects inspire, the march towards racial equality on Furman’s campus will slowly advance until it has fully been achieved.

The terrible impacts of the unholy alliance between real estate developers and textile magnets of the 1930s and 40s and the white supremacy that flourished nearly eighty years ago can still be seen in the quickly-gentrifying streets of downtown Greenville. Black families, just trying to make ends meet, are once again being forced out of sections of the city, this time by unchecked market forces and reckless development instead of by the racist clauses etched onto the housing deeds of the past.