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UA's Morgan Hall to Be Re-Named

Morgan Hall is the second building on Alabama's campus to have 'racist ties' removed from the name in recent months
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On Thursday, the University of Alabama's Board of Trustees approved a name change to Morgan Hall, where the school's english department is housed. 

Morgan Hall, originally named after John Tyler Morgan in 1910, who was a Confederate General and United States senator that had ties to the Ku Klux Klan, will now be called "The English Building." 

It was an unanimous decision from the board. 

"Senator Morgan made substantial contributions to the University of Alabama," Committee head Judge John England Jr. said in the meeting held today. "We have also observed and noted that Senator Morgan was, however, an ardent white supremacist. He referred to African Americans as rats from the floor of the U.S. Senate and said slavery was the highest point the negro race could achieve.

"He used his position as a senator, to advocate for mass immigration of African-Americans to the Congo, Cuba, and the Philippines. In other words, send us out of the country we worked to help build. As our research confirmed, Senator Morgan laid groundwork for Jim Crow laws that would disenfranchise African-Americans for decades. 

"In the future, we hope the building is named after an appropriate individual." 

This is the second building on Alabama's campus to remove 'racist ties' in recent months. The first was the removal of Dr. Josiah C. Nott's name from Nott Hall, which houses the Honors College, to Honors Hall back in August. 

Nott was a slave owner who lived from 1804-1873. 

Alabama has also removed multiple Confederate plaques that were located in front of Gorgas Library earlier this summer.