Page 153 →Inclusive Placemaking

To complete this analysis, the coauthors of the article review the plaza from a mixed methodological perspective. Four coauthors engaged in ethnographic observation and reflection, guided by Ronald Lee Fleming in The Art of Place-making.² As Vaughn Plaza represents a public art installation on an already busy campus space, Fleming’s four-part framework is apt. It suggests that well-designed spaces for public engagement incorporate an attention to orientation, connection, direction, and animation. Fleming’s work focuses on redesigned spaces that visitors visit by necessity—much like Vaughn Plaza is impossible to avoid in Furman’s central campus footpaths. Placemaking aims to amplify already high-traffic, public space to attract, bring economic development, build community, and shape identity. Moreover, “deep place-making,” as Jon Spayde calls it, goes even further to embed art within experiences, reminding those who enjoy the place of “darker, stranger, perhaps sadder realities.”³ In their reflections, meetings to witness Vaughn Plaza, and sharing notes afterward, the coauthors found that the plaza hit this higher bar of “deep placemaking.”

In addition to placemaking ethnography, qualitative interviews were conducted in the fall of 2021 to explore student perceptions of Vaughn Plaza. As part of an upper-level qualitative methods seminar (Sociology 470, under the direction of Dr. Claire Whitlinger, Sociology), students enrolled in the course conducted twenty-four peer interviews, following a semistructured interview guide. Each interview lasted between thirty and sixty minutes. Respondents were recruited using purposeful sampling, ensuring variation on gender, race, and region. An equal number of upperclassman and underclassman respondents were interviewed. After their information was Page 155 →transcribed and uploaded, coauthor Whitni Simpson coded it using the qualitative data analysis software, Dedoose. Analysis was inductive, utilizing line-by-line open coding to identify emergent themes and, later, selective coding to refine theoretical insights in line with grounded theory.⁴ This information helps us understand different perceptions of a primary target audience, especially across race, on a space so clearly created to bridge the racial divide between Blacks and whites—at Furman and the Upstate of South Carolina. Students tell us what is effectively true for them to guide their experience through the space.⁵

The three other authors use critical-cultural theory and public memory studies to analyze the space as a site of campus power relations and consider the site’s resistive potential on the campus landscape. Informed by Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education, the authors view the campus space as a site of ideological struggle in which public memory and space are tools of contestation and cooptation.⁶ Informed by the Universities Studying Slavery movement and a broad racial reckoning in institutions across the United States and globally, Vaughn Plaza is an example of institutional response to a long tradition of Black-led student activism, especially on university campuses or the cities adjacent to their campus. Wendy Leo Moore’s concept of “white institutional space” reminds us that systems of inequality structure the material and social development of institutions like those in higher education. This produces “racialized social institutions” that “reproduce the racial social structure—which in the United States is White supremacy.”⁷ The analysis of Vaughn Plaza must be informed not only by our own experience and the experience of students but also within the critical and historical context of a multigenerational racial struggle in which even moments of inclusive placemaking can easily be co-opted into temporary appeasement.

The paper blends these methodologies and disciplinary lenses rather than feature them separately. Its contribution is to be the first study of inclusive placemaking (or, what Spayde calls “deep placemaking” in his call for such work), and its mixed methodological approach serves as a potential model for further studies.⁸ Not only does such a study further academic critique, it also helps us imagine future placemaking art and design for social justice, offers practical suggestions and insights to those looking to do similar, and even concludes with practical recommendations for our own local experience.

Neely and Samura, in writing about social geographies of race, blend traditions of critical spatial theory and racial studies.⁹ The authors posit four Page 156 →key characteristics for analysis of racialized space. Specifically, they guide our reading of race and space to see both as (1) contested, (2) fluid and historical, (3) interactional and relational, and (4) defined by inequality and difference. As the authors put it, “thinking about race through the lens of space not only helps us locate and understand racial processes, it also allows us to recognize possibilities for changing existing power structures and see how people are already engaged in these resistance activities.”¹⁰

Throughout our conversations across disciplines, racialized experiences, and institutional roles (as students, staff, and faculty), we kept returning to three paired tensions that demonstrate these racialized processes of placemaking and resistance. They are centrality versus exposure, engagement versus solitude, and celebration versus subversion. In each of the six terms, structured as headings below, we explore how the university’s shared goals—at least its initial and explicit goals—come with an undercurrent of something more unresolved and ambiguous. In the end, though, these difficult undercurrents create an opportunity for even further inclusivity at the university—if understood as natural outcomes of grappling with inclusivity as a meaningful community goal.

In 2017, Furman University centered reckoning with its roots in slavery, joining a consortium of eighty-six schools currently aligned with Universities Studying Slavery.¹¹ On October 16, 2016, when this movement was fairly new, Furman student Marian Baker raised questions about the university’s founders in an opinion piece in the student newspaper The Paladin.¹² In response to student pressure and faculty leadership, the university provost commissioned the Task Force on Slavery and Justice. Its purpose was to find the answers to the unanswered questions of Furman’s racist past and bring the information to upper administration and the board of trustees, with a vision of how to reconcile with this history. The task force consisted of seventeen members, including students, staff, young Furman alumni, and professors from departments ranging from sociology and political science to communication studies.

Between the spring of 2017 and July 2018, the task force gathered evidence and compiled a report that outlined their process and findings. This report is titled “Seeking Abraham,” named after Abraham Sims, who is the subject of the only photo that depicts life among the enslaved persons held by the university’s founders.¹³ “Seeking Abraham” included recommendations for Page 157 →decision-making by the administration and trustees. The first section of recommendations dealt with the campus landscape and the first of these recommendations was for the Vaughn statue. It reads:

WE RECOMMEND that a statue of Joseph Vaughn be installed at the spot of the iconic photograph in which he approaches the James B. Duke Library, capturing Vaughn’s enthusiastic commitment to education. The statue should be life-size and incorporate a material that allows onlookers to see themselves in Vaughn. January 29th, the day of his enrollment (in 1965), should be the date of the sculpture dedication and thereafter should be commemorated as Joseph Vaughn Day to celebrate and encourage active student engagement and challenging the status quo. The sculpture will mark the dedication of the first permanent representation of a person of color on Furman’s campus, marking a commitment toward more.¹⁴

The Vaughn statue was, thus, central to the recommendations of this very public, very publicized process of the university wrestling with its past.

Within the space of the university, too, the original request for a Vaughn statue is central. The iconic photo places Vaughn in front of the campus library. Architects for the 1950s campus placed the library atop a hill in the very center of campus, with all academic buildings centered around central fountains. Thus, the spot represents the literal geographic and symbolic center of activity for the entire “world” of Furman University.

Page 158 →This central part of campus is closed to vehicular traffic, so nearly everybody who visits Joseph Vaughn Plaza approaches on foot, walking toward the front steps of the James B. Duke Library. Coming from a parked car or other campus building, the most striking initial impressions are the materials and colors. Large white horizontal plinths frame the space and are etched with rich black letters. The striking contrast of black letters swallowed among majority white stones provides immediate clues about the stories of racial discrimination and integration. As one moves closer toward the plaza, the “slightly larger than life-sized” statue of Vaughn takes your eyes from these large white plinths. Made of bronze, the darkened exterior of the figure again accentuates the significance of race while also casting a slightly dark and somber tone compared with the gleaming white stones under and around him. The statue is placed within a large and open space, on a pedestal, and oriented toward incoming visitors.

When asked to recall the recommendations of the “Seeking Abraham” report, students most frequently cited the Joseph Vaughn statue. Nearly every respondent to a randomized student interview process admitted that they thought of the statue because of the centrality of its location on campus. The students interviewed were asked to think about the emotions evoked when passing the statue. One respondent reflected, “When I do walk past it, it’s just a reminder that, like, there were people before me who risked everything and worked so hard so that people like me could come to this school.” Many white respondents identified the statue as a symbol of moving forward and an indication of how far we have come. One even referenced how this is depicted by the physical appearance of the statue: “The statue has one foot in front of another as if it’s walking, and his eyes are pointed upwards. So, it seems very hopeful and future-oriented.” Black respondents’ analysis of the structure did not drastically differ. One student stated, “I feel like it’s really just kind of a movement to show the appreciation and show the growth of Black students on campus. The statue and the picture of him walking, I just feel like, is really powerful.”

Together, the spatial arrangement of the objects forces the visitor to see Vaughn, to engage and interact with him, to acknowledge his presence. Rituals of experience in space create public memories; these, in turn, create group identity that informs individual identity.¹⁵ The statue, fashioned after the iconic photo of Vaughn during his first semester at Furman in 1965, cannot be ignored or overlooked. The lack of clutter in the space, the elevation of the statue within it, and the engaging posture of the statue command visual attention. This assemblage of materials in a specific spatial configuration Page 159 →sends a convincing orienting message that this individual will not be hidden or tucked away. Joseph Vaughn and the act of desegregation will be central to the university’s identity going forward.

The unfortunate consequence of centrality, when making a space for inclusion, is exposure. It is as if the space asks visitors to examine, watch, perhaps even scrutinize Vaughn himself. There is, indeed, nowhere for him to hide—although fully seen, he is also fully exposed. Vaughn was exposed to white supremacist environments in his lifetime, and the plaza in some ways reenacts this exposure. Even as the majority-white campus and trustees might feel they are “lifting up” Vaughn onto a white plinth at the heart of campus, literally and metaphorically, it may be harder to see how much Furman needed and needs Vaughn, then and now. As sociologists have shown, the motivation to center difficult pasts may come from a sense of responsibility and desire to make amends with those impacted, or from a desire to prevent reputational damage from not acknowledging that such things happened.¹⁶

Furman University had engaged in centuries of omissions and cover-ups for its racist past. The Slavery and Justice Task Force revealed, for example, that the plantation home on campus was called a “Southern mansion” and repurposed as an “alumni house” but had never been referred to as a plantation in university communications. Records from slavery, segregation, and desegregation had been carefully eliminated and overlooked in campus archives until the 2010s. Campus racist incidents have been regular occurrences, especially when one includes microaggressions that were meant to make nonwhite persons feel lesser, even when not consciously or aggressively harmful. Yet, as a school with ambitions in the top-50 liberal arts colleges, recruiting and retaining diverse students and employees remains vitally important.

Reputational management is especially relevant when studying universities, as they pay close attention to their sociopolitical context and audiences. As a private university in the twenty-first century, Furman has a significant interest in both reputational repair with minority applicants, as well as its educational mission. Yet in doing so, it would need to approach the task conservatively knowing that the racial majority often have negative emotional reactions to learning about their privileges.¹⁷ As a tuition-dependent institution, Furman could not risk students being made to feel guilty for past Page 160 →university wrongs. Thus, Vaughn offers a unifying positive image for Furman reckoning with its historical harms—he is a historical example of obvious progress that could be socially contested and discussed as well as a model for a future of multiracial inclusivity and excellence. Vaughn becomes a token figure to move past historical harms and recenter Furman’s success. Work on the plaza began in October 2020 and was completed six months later in April 2021, only a year after the committee had been formed (2019–20). Trustees moved quickly, even during the pandemic, to commission architects for the plaza and a sculptor. Vaughn’s statue was an expedient way to repair Furman’s reputational harms with a positive endorsement of inclusivity.

The way that students learned about the plaza further reflects Furman’s need to “expose” Vaughn as a symbol of racial progress. The interviews of student opinions demonstrated that nearly all students first learned about institutional repair from emails sent from the President’s email account. Students described the messages as vague and speaking of diversity and inclusion in service of the university’s image, which obfuscated rather than clarified the specifics of the university’s past wrongs or steps of repair. Further, findings revealed that most students have not read the report, despite that it was linked to the emails. Campus leaders failed to engage most students to think deeply or constructively about repairing past harm, instead relying on institutional leaders and their public communication for exposure.

Raised at the center of campus, the sculpture’s exposure can be liberating, but it can also represent the institutional powers he serves. Vaughn and other students who slowly desegregated Furman over the coming decades frequently commented they felt like the “fly in the buttermilk,” and Vaughn made jokes about his uncomfortable obviousness on campus, in a sea of white faces—even as he described being made to feel welcome.¹⁸ The statue and plaza, like Vaughn himself, are watched. Any protest or agitation here is not just viewed by students or peers but is subservient to the tower of knowledge behind it and the supervising campus staff around it.

Student activity, although appearing natural and centered around the plaza, is regulated in a way incongruent with Vaughn’s subversive spirit of humor and activism. The James B. Duke Library instructs, on a frequently used web portal, that students may not undertake any “activities involving paint, liquid chalk, dyes, or any other materials that may stain or damage the Plaza.” In addition, “marking the steps or porch with chalk is NOT allowed.”¹⁹ Activities, the site goes on to say, may not block or interfere with the accessibility ramp to the Duke Library porch; chairs and tables may not be moved from the porch. The Plaza is for the exclusive use of Furman Page 161 →affiliated groups and organizations, with no solicitation by outside entities. Scheduling a special event in the outdoor space must proceed along the same rules and registration system used for events inside the building. To request tables and chairs, a person (usually a student) needs to request the materials from the campus facilities department and then also use a library-sponsored form to reserve the plaza.

The open invitation to create exposure on Vaughn’s stones comes with the gaze of a sanitized, surveilled location. Students who engage Vaughn Plaza expose themselves to Furman’s careful reputational management. Some tolerance is likely. Max Clarke and Gary Alan Fine write that universities are usually open to cultivating their collective persona in ways that addresses their historical injustices.²⁰ This is the case, given the identity of universities as places of conscious deliberation, as well as the home of reputation entrepreneurs primed to fight injustice. As Neely and Samura attest in their first characteristic, racialized spaces are key sites of contestation and thus campus politics.²¹ The university has a strong interest in limiting speech that would draw further attention to racial divides existing within campus or the broader community surrounding the university.

Although the central area of the plaza is an open landscape of brick built for person-to-person interaction, the pathways in and out of the plaza direct visitors to engage even more directly with Vaughn’s off-center statue. A narrow and lengthy pathway that connects to sidewalks in both directions is engineered to force traffic directly in front of Vaughn’s statue. Between these routes are landscaping beds of trees and shrubs, benches, or plaza pillars, limiting the passages through which visitors travel. A second parallel pathway guides visitors behind Vaughn’s statue, whereby one encounters the statue from the back, although even still the size and significance of the heavy, dark object within the otherwise red or white backdrop invites attention. Perpendicular to those two guided routes are two sets of steps to the James B. Duke Library. Whether moving toward or away from the library using these pathways, visitors must engage in a space shared by Vaughn. Whether consciously or subconsciously, all visitors are linked to his likeness, to mix and intermingle with his legacy.

Beyond passing engagement, the large white plinths that mark the front of the plaza are positioned well for visitors to sit on them, as two parallel benches. Closer to the library, at the back of the plaza, nearly a dozen six-seat permanent grated metal tables with metal chairs can be moved to find sun or shade, depending on the weather. These elements are perpetual objects of the place, which connote meaning aligned with community and social interaction. They invite visitors and students to use the place as more than just a central pathway toward somewhere else. Cohering with Fleming’s art of placemaking, the commissioned art intersects with the lived experience of the community on a deep and personal level.

Beyond initial clues designed to orient the visitor to the plaza, visitors are invited to connect with the history and meaning of the place. The scale of the statue (slightly larger than life) in such an open space appears to be merely “life-sized.” As such, the statue suggests to the visitor that the three-hundred-twenty-pound mass of bronze is more like them than not. Vaughn’s outstretched hand connotes a lively openness, inviting the visitor to take hold and say hello. Looking directly ahead, Vaughn’s eyes “speak” with a humble kindness. The visitor can interpret the art, taken together, as not simply an object of the past but a subject of the present; as not just a historical monument but a fluid enactment of that history in the present day, Neely and Samura’s second characteristic of racialized space.²² They are material signals that the plaza participates in Spayde’s “deep placemaking” using Page 163 →interaction, engagement, and connection to inspire while also potentially disturbing the otherwise white landscape.²³

Although the picture on which the statue was modeled depicts Vaughn walking into the library building, the statue itself is positioned as if Vaughn is walking out of, and away from, the library. The position and outward spatial orientation send a subtle message that connects the past significance of Vaughn’s presence at Furman to the present opportunity for further engagement on the rest of campus and the world beyond. Vaughn is facing out, toward a vast open mall with organic elements of water, grass, trees, and wildlife—a fluid, unbridled landscape of opportunity. Vaughn’s statue becomes an “active archive,” one with multiple layers of meaning that change across time.²⁴ He is both a remnant of the students’ grandparents’ generation and an active agent changing direction for the present generation.

One final spatial signal that connects Vaughn’s history with the meaning and purpose of the plaza involves the vastness of the plaza itself. The “unboxed” and uncontained nature of the plaza suggests that it is meant to encourage embodied assertions and declarations of diverse identities, ideas, and causes. Around its borders, the plinths along with a few park benches and tables on the library portico also suggest that momentary meet-ups can lead to longer conversations. This open, elevated, and central campus place is designed for members of the community to be engaged and be seen, much like Vaughn as a student all-star and civil rights activist.

In the daytime, the sheer volume of traffic that moves through Vaughn Plaza indicates to visitors both the centrality and energy of the place. The diversity of routes in and out of the space ensures that humans and non-human animals (e.g., squirrels, Canada geese, American crows) engage in a constant jigsaw of movement, crisscrossing each other throughout the space. A dizzying, if sometimes chaotic, array of movement unfolds. This multifaceted, multidimensional, somewhat unorganized movement throughout the space cultivates a buzz of action that is often palpable.

The site is a prominent space of encounter—between student and faculty/staff, staff and faculty, faculty and faculty, and student and student. The plaza is frequently used by representatives of campus organizations to “table.” Student groups set up various marketing, advertising, or promotional materials or activities on portable tables to recruit, educate, and engage. Aside from the two permanently anchored metal benches in the open plaza space, there are no additional permanent structures. Canvas tents, folding chairs and tables, music, and food items come and go. Whether you are a student traveling from a residence hall, a staff member completing a shift in the dining Page 164 →hall, a faculty member who just finished teaching a class, or an administrator gathering for a meeting in the library, the level terrain of the plaza invites all visitors to engage on equal footing in a shared and dynamic space. Connection with other members of the community is commonplace and inevitable. Individual subjects intermingle to signify an overall object—a vibrant, inclusive, and equitable community. In relationships and interactions, racialized space is co-created and tied with the icon of Vaughn, meeting Neely and Samura’s third characteristic of relational and interactional development.

Yet, as these authors noted, “meanings of race and space are always created and recreated in relationship to the ‘other.’”²⁵ Although Vaughn Plaza often displays a melting pot on campus, in practice, the space also allows various campus groups to reify their own unique identities and social boundaries, “recruiting” those with similar interests and identities, and, in effect, positioning as “other” those who are not included. Similarly, campus guests and community members, without the internal relationships as a foundation, may be positioned as “other” to the invitational space. The plaque that describes the overall purpose of the space is small and hidden in landscaping. No welcome signs or clear explanation of the space awaits the guest, who would need to piece together meaning from a one-sentence biography, a donor plaque, and dedication year on the other side of the plaza. Finally, as explored in the next section, at certain times of day and within the academic calendar, Vaughn himself stands alone—enacting himself again as “other” to campus connection.

Vaughn’s statue stands on the left side of the stairs, following the iconic photograph in its placement and accentuating the almost natural gesture of leaving the library to go elsewhere (a movement also suggested by Vaughn’s stance, depicted in the act of walking). This helps mitigate the overall impression of exposure, making him engaging and “one of us,” but it also introduces asymmetry. The statue’s prominence is reduced. The statue is placed on a white plinth with the inscription “Joseph Vaughn ’68.” He towers slightly above those walking by, giving back some place of honor in one’s first encounter with the plaza. Over time, however, the slight four-inch plinth serves to separate him from the crowds around. Unlike a heroic military statue that might put Vaughn soaring overhead and centered on the stairs, he becomes both commonplace at visitors’ height and “a world away” from a passerby because Page 165 →of his slight elevation. In bestowing honor, the asymmetrical placement and slightly raised sculpture ends up making Vaughn a significantly lonely figure—recognized as part of the community, equal with the rest, but not. The slight pedestal and separation from the university as “other” creates a strong visual metaphor for the continuing tokenistic treatment and visibility of difference of nonwhite members of the Furman community.

This idea that one can be thoroughly engaged at Furman yet all the while alone, or lonely, is mimicked by the large inscriptions—reflections made by Vaughn himself on his Furman experience—on the white plinths. One reads, “I felt like a majority of one,” and the other reads, “Make sure you are a part of Furman’s greatness.” Vaughn, biographically, was an extremely engaged extrovert. He joined the Baptist Student Union and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), and he was a member of the cheerleading squad.²⁶ He succeeded as an English major with a French minor, and he played a role in campus theater productions. He was an activist for civil rights, participating in demonstrations after the Orangeburg Massacre; published in the student newspaper his leaving the Baptist faith to become Bahá’í; and founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) student chapter on campus. Classmates continue to share positive and humorous exchanges about Vaughn. He left Furman to become a valued teacher and president of the Greenville County Association of Teachers, and, in 1981, he was elected president of the South Carolina Education Association. Vaughn’s quotes attest to his own ability to transcend obstacles, find a sense of belonging in Furman’s engaged community, and feel powerful as a representative of one’s upbringing and identity.

Yet the loneliness of these quotations seems to be obvious among the student body, perhaps a reflection of the statue’s solitude. In the qualitative student interviews, students of color typically explained how the quotations resonated with them, whereas white students read them as symbolic of university history. For example, when discussing the quotation “I felt like a majority of one,” one Black respondent explained, “I definitely relate to [the quotation] because, in a lot of my classes, I’m the only Black student in class and so I really do feel like, damn, I’m looking around and it really is only me.” For Black students, Furman is attesting to their experience of social otherness and alienation—something they felt the university tended to previously overlook in the institution’s brand to be represented as minority-welcoming. Meanwhile, a white student reflected, “So the ‘majority of one’ really makes me feel like, I think he first joined Furman in the 60’s, so you know, that Page 166 →was really not that long ago, and it’s kind of sad that in such a short period, there was a time that there was so little diversity at Furman that it was all on that one person.” The quotation made white students realize how late in Furman’s history the lack of diversity on campus was even fathomed as a reputational issue, as well as the burden of solitude placed on Vaughn.

The second inscription, “Make sure you are a part of Furman’s greatness,” lacks the “I” that identifies the other quotation as clearly Vaughn’s own words (as an alumnus reflecting on his time as a student) and so can even be read as an instruction from Furman itself. Thus, for example, a white respondent recognized, “It just, it seems more Furman celebratory than celebrating the individual. And I don’t know, it makes it seem like the statue is celebrating Furman for being so accepting and welcoming versus applauding Joseph Vaughn for his accomplishment, and courage.” The plinth’s inscription suggests that Furman considers itself an inclusive community already and that it accomplished something in “accepting” Vaughn—a sentiment very much reflected in the study of the process of desegregation in 2015.²⁷ The university had professed to be granting an opportunity to Vaughn with a warm embrace, rather than as a reluctant actor who benefited from Vaughn’s presence, at a minimum to avoid lawsuits and protest.

Meanwhile, a Black respondent found a way to identify with the quotation more authentically and less critically: “The one of being part of Furman’s greatness is, I think, speaks a lot to me. I was a part of an athletic race campaign. And we mentioned just kind of like how important it is to give voices to the [B]lack athletes and be allies. And I feel like, kind of anything that anyone can do white, [B]lack, Hispanic, Asian, is so important and you could do so much to kind of elevate Furman racially … being more inclusive, so I feel like kind of playing into that greatness. I feel like everyone has a role in that.” This student interprets the inscription as a celebration for the opportunity to be part of Furman’s future growth toward inclusivity. Students across interviews agreed that the statue seemed like a major statement or step accomplished by the university. Nevertheless, they shared concern that Furman was not committing to further institutional action—at least not visibly. Lone individuals, like Vaughn, can inspire, but it is unclear whether they can count on institutional action to facilitate this inclusion.

Vaughn stands alone, solitary, especially at night. When one gazes at him over this tremendous landscape of fountains and buildings, feelings of loneliness necessarily emerge for students of color. Feelings of tokenization Page 167 →and vulnerability come in these tranquil moments to disrupt the celebratory and iconic scene. In the immense red brick area, with huge white plinths, Vaughn’s nearly life-size, nearly eyesight-level figure becomes a small Black dot on the huge predominantly white liberal arts landscape.

Perhaps aware of this effect of solitude and isolation, the architect built in a small visual “trick” in the plaza’s stones that no visitors would notice without prompting. Red brick buildings rise from the red brick plaza in all directions, with the red bricks of the library merging seamlessly with the red brick pavers below the visitor’s feet. The architect planted darker pigmented red (almost brown) bricks surrounding Vaughn’s statue and infused the pavers in a somewhat chaotic and somewhat purposeful tapestry. Barely noticeable, lines in the bricks representing the library’s columns are “pierced” by these darker pigmented red bricks. This interjection of brick diversity into the plaza replicates the impact of Vaughn and students of color, unsettling the whites-only and European-centered liberal arts paradigm. Vaughn metaphorically becomes a beacon of light or the epicenter of a ripple effect in the sea of homogenous institutions, norms, and systems.

Yet, this message is so subtle and unannounced in the current configuration as to not significantly disrupt the obvious solitude and short plinth occupied by Vaughn alone. Neely and Samura’s fourth characteristic of geographies of race—that they are spaces produced and reproduced via differential and inequitable access to and use of space—is clearly represented in Page 168 →the tension between engagement and solitude.²⁸ Within the “mechanisms of white space,” as theorized by Wendy Leo Moore, any first attempt at inclusive placemaking at a predominantly white campus would reinscribe the everyday racialized practices of the institution. Despite the overwhelming positive engagement by the broad community and the personal inspirations taken by many students of color, the privilege of inherently and unquestionably belonging does structure white supremacy on the landscape.²⁹ A broad, actively antiracist stance that challenges institutional policies and demographics could undo the isolating social power working over Vaughn and his heirs.

After the plaza and statue are encountered, perhaps long after, the visitor might happen to read a small and understated waist-high plaque tucked away behind and beside the statue amid the landscaping. After a brief description of Vaughn, his status as the first African-American undergraduate student at Furman, and his role as a state educational leader and dedicated alumnus, the text concludes with explicit language about the purpose of the plaza itself. “This plaza honors Vaughn and those whose contributions have cultivated a campus community that strives towards greater equity and inclusion.” Reading this, a visitor might imagine future opportunities for the plaza in disrupting Vaughn’s solitude and providing space to celebrate and remember not only Vaughn but also other figures connected to the university, guided by equity and inclusion.

In its current use, the one time that Vaughn’s contributions are especially noticed is January 29th each year, Joseph Vaughn Day. The date coincides with the day Vaughn enrolled at Furman and the iconic photograph was taken. Started by Adare Smith (Class of 2020) on January 29, 2019, the event has garnered broad community support and press releases. Smith formulated a walk of remembrance, simulating Vaughn’s walk beside the fountains to enroll at the library and ending with a set of speeches and commemorative activities. After that first year, instigated by Smith, trustees endorsed the tradition as a true university-wide event and the City of Greenville marked it as an officially recognized day. With leadership from Furman’s Community Development office, news cameras and DJs surround the plaza, honorary degrees are awarded, and performances by music groups (e.g., the Furman University Gospel Ensemble and the Baha’i Drum Circle) and speeches mark the occasion. Although only a small subsection of the Page 169 →campus attends such an event—perhaps a couple hundred people—the press releases and regional news coverage help build the honorific intent of the plaza. If curious visitors to the plaza conduct a web search of Joseph Vaughn to learn about him, they will likely be met with Vaughn Day news stories, press releases, and honorary degree awards.

The trustees and library use the plaza to celebrate “Furman’s greatness” in ways less tied to inclusivity or equity. For example, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to keep large gatherings outdoors, the plaza has been used to celebrate faculty publications in an annual event that allows faculty to showcase their research to trustees. Vaughn’s statue, because it is off-centered, becomes another “guest” at such a formal occasion rather than a towering imposition. These festive, official uses of the central space allow Vaughn to intermingle with core university activities, centering inclusion and equity in events not necessarily tied to that purpose. Annual Vaughn Days require significant management and may not enjoy the same perpetuity as the statue and plaza themselves. Convocation and commencement happen at other campus arenas. Such opportunities to honor and celebrate—words used by the Task Force on Slavery and Justice and the trustees in recommending and implementing the space—are somewhat infrequent for the general campus and community.

Despite the tight regulations, from time to time, posters, signs, flags, and megaphones have filled the space. Rather than honoring individuals who create a more equitable and inclusive community, the plaza participates in their becoming. Even as protests themselves have been small so far, they lead to signage for months, with flags and yarn wraps representing diversity in gender and sexuality, nonwhite student groups, and others. These subversions of the space of celebration and honor even go so far as to animate significant dissent against university inequities and complacency.

Given spatial centrality for campus, the plaza’s area had been used for protest before its Vaughn Plaza makeover. For example, a “lie-in” and similar protests happened in the 2010s as police brutality attracted national attention and led into the existence of Black Lives Matter. Donald Trump’s ascendency and the attempted repeal of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) led to protests. Looking back further, in 2001, a candlelight vigil was held on the steps in the days after September 11th. Still, the remake of the plaza with Vaughn has seemed to only legitimate its resistive possibilities. Furthermore, the use of Vaughn’s statue serves as a powerful visual metaphor of social justice that has been intentionally incorporated into the messaging and behavior of those subverting the celebratory space.

Racialized counter-memories are public memories that explicitly center meanings of race and racism.³⁰ Racialized counter-memories not only have the power to make race known in pervasively white landscapes but also offer antiracist narratives that oppose systems of white supremacy. For example, to conclude Black History Month in February 2022, representatives from Black Greek Letter Fraternities came to campus for a “Yard Show” that demonstrates steps and strolls.³¹ This meeting, around Joseph Vaughn, made the not-subtle argument that Furman needs to expand its Black student population and expand Greek life centered on minority solidarity. The inanimate statue of Vaughn is incorporated into the present animation of the space, offering a particularly powerful material–semiotic interaction.

Another specific example of the plaza’s value to student activists stands out from the Fall 2021 semester. During that time, a series of incidents illustrated deep-rooted cultures of white supremacy present within the student body. Anti-LGBTQI+ incidents occurred in October, and, in November, white nationalist stickers were found on campus to support “Patriot Front,” a hate group formed from the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in Page 171 →2017.³² On November 12 and 14, students found Black Lives Matter flags that were defaced to read “All Lives Matter.”³³

In response to these racist and homophobic acts, dozens of students came together on Vaughn Plaza on November 19, 2021, both to voice their disappointment about the incidents and to criticize the university leadership’s response for lacking transparency. Emily Balogh, president of the Furman Pride Alliance, argued that the university needed to offer more timely information.³⁴ Miles Baker, president of the Furman chapter of the NAACP, urged the administration to “listen closely, as student participation in the protest indicates the ideas and values of students.”³⁵

One might argue that such acts are not subversive, given that they were attended by Furman University faculty and leadership. Yet such acts visually implicate Joseph Vaughn as an ally to their cause or as one of the protesters himself. Vaughn stands, quite literally, in solidarity, as protestors surround the statue and even use his hand to hold one end of the protest banner. And given Vaughn’s own history with student advocacy as an undergraduate student at Furman, his physical presence among student protestors in 2021 produced a racialized counter-memory. Vaughn and his memory were not institutionally curated as a nonthreatening symbol of diversity accomplished. Rather, he co-creates students’ enduring concern about issues of white supremacy at Furman and beyond. In this moment, Vaughn was not a tool of university communications but an activator for alternative student voices.

After the racialized counter-memory placemaking by student protesters (Fall 2021), on Vaughn Day 2022, Asha Marie spoke as Furman University’s 2021–2022 Student Government Association president. She expressed her desire to see the plaza utilized for student organizing. In her speech, Marie pleaded that the Furman community not let Vaughn’s statue be left as “a racial symbol.”³⁶ She continued, “his story cannot be reduced to a symbol of our institution’s racial progress—a shiny gold star for our university’s positionality in history.” Her fear of Joseph Vaughn’s memory being co-opted by the institution and only remembered in the memory site as a symbol of complacency is clear. She defined her desired use of the space as one where visitors were “challenged[ed] to invest in community, stand up for what’s right and insist that we participate in making our communities a better place.”³⁷ As she concluded her speech, she took the time to recognize the ways in which the plaza and statue were activated during the event as specifically in support for the Black community. And, in doing so, she again narrated her vision for engaged antiracist placemaking at the site: “Thank you all for coming to celebrate and honor the legacy of Joseph Vaughn. By Page 172 →being here, you are showing up for our Black community, who continue to be the lifeblood of this institution, yet often do not receive the recognition they deserve. Your presence and participation today says that you see us, you stand with us, and my hope is that you will continue to walk in Vaughn’s legacy, advocating always for community and to be doing what it takes to be better—committed to justice, equity, and true inclusion.”³⁸ Marie asks the community to work toward antiracist justice in lockstep with Joseph Vaughn and his statue in midstride. Although this sort of explicit antiracist activism is not built into the site of Joseph Vaughn Plaza, Marie’s vision illustrated how students, faculty/staff, and community members may choose to subvert a spirit of honor and celebration. Inclusivity is so often co-opted as a mellow and unifying sense of belonging, yet it always brings with it a radical potential for subversion of those aims.

One of the primary reasons Vaughn Plaza exists is the story of a six-year-old African-American child. Part of a day care class tour of Furman’s campus, she returned home that afternoon to her mother who serves on Furman’s Page 173 →faculty. When her mom asked, “How was your day?” the daughter replied that it was great, that they got to be outside and play, but that she “wanted to be white.” The mother, who had never before spoken to her daughter about race, asked what she meant. The daughter replied, “White people are important and get statues made for them. I want to be important one day.” This testimony, presented to the Furman Board of Trustees, was pivotal in their vote and their rush to execute Joseph Vaughn Plaza.

We hope that this essay bolsters this spirit of fostering equity and inclusion, even as it necessarily delves into the critical aspects of the space. As with any commemorative task within a free, democratic society, multiple interpretations and multiple uses will surely emerge. As a multivocal commemorative space, it carries “diverse meanings and thus can be peopled by groups with different interpretations of the same past.”³⁹ Vaughn Plaza succeeds at creating a space of centrality, engagement, and celebration for all. This essay suggests that it might go even further, to become a space of not only multivocal commemoration but also “integrative commemoration,” which allows for “the direct expression (and even celebration) of multiple conflicting values and interpretations of an event.”⁴⁰ Spayde’s invitation to “deep placemaking” is already happening at Vaughn Plaza, and this analysis has highlighted how racialized space in a predominantly white institution can purposefully and surprisingly unsettle passive notions of inclusivity.

In terms of Furman University’s Vaughn Plaza itself, we do have specific practical recommendations to take this work further, from the insights of a social geography of race. These would include the following:

• Give future consideration of Vaughn quotations for a plinth that challenge Furman, least of which would be his challenge in the same speech already quoted on the plinths, that “Furman must continue on the path of social justice….”
• On Joseph Vaughn’s plinth, add a bronze set of “footprints” that symbolically invite contemporary visitors to join Vaughn—whether for photographs, for fun, or for activism, to have visitors rethink his solitude.
• Use a further plaque to draw attention to the darker bricks that already make up and will continue to even more significantly make up the literal ground beneath. Consider even using these darker bricks around campus with inscriptions for various honorees who bring equity and inclusion, whether to Furman specifically or the state and region more broadly.
• Generate classroom and digital integrations on the plaza that allow the place to do more storytelling—more about the path to desegregation at Page 174 →Furman, about Vaughn’s life, or about activism and minority experiences at the university. Presidential emails by their nature give the feeling of institutional brand-making, rather than authentic engagement.
• Connect the plaza strongly, through digital counter-memory tourism, to campus sites that deal with racism in the university past, as well as other examples of Black excellence. Never allow Vaughn Plaza to exist self-congratulatory, but as one “step” in a broader narrative.
• Signal somewhere in the campus landscape an official apology for specific historical wrongdoing and a commitment to further action.

Integrative commemoration, embodied in this list, makes a place for empathy for historically marginalized identities and racialized countermemory activism alongside celebration for those who need to return to campus to feel proud of alma mater. It legitimates truth-telling and inclusive disagreement, discussion, and dialogue while not sacrificing the beauty and inspiration of a space of central public memory for the university.

The conclusions of the qualitative study from student interviews clearly show that students generally recognize that there are positive contributions from the Task Force on Slavery and Justice, the “Seeking Abraham” Report, the board of trustees, and the various pronouncements from President Elizabeth Davis’s email and university press releases since. Specifically, students generally praise the commemoration of an influential person of color, erasure of names of people who held racist ideologies, increased mobilization of Black students, and the facilitation of meaningful academic discussions about race. Yet, students also recognize that these positive results do not occur without negative consequences such as increased tokenism, segregation, fear, conflict, generalizations, and an unsatiated hunger for social equity on campus. Inclusion work, including placemaking in the community, follows along this difficult double-edged sword.

The three paired terms we have offered could be a guide for future analysis of inclusive placemaking. We can continue to listen and empathize with those who feel exposed for special scrutiny by their identity, as Vaughn did and now does on his plinth above central campus. We can continue to resist the urge to tokenize and thus alienate “special individuals” as representatives for their race or other identity. If Joseph Vaughn, or perhaps worse, just his act of desegregation, is viewed as part of “Furman’s greatness” for letting him join existing greatness, then he will remain a solitary figure. Rather, if we see predominantly white institutions as in deep need of significant change—as the indebted in this relationship with historically marginalized Page 175 →groups and individuals—then engagement can supersede othering and solitude. Vaughn, at Furman, will be surrounded by a beloved community. And last, by realizing that celebration and subversion are two sides of the same coin of individual- and institutional-becoming, we validate inclusive place-making as itself a subversive act ready to undermine its own visionaries and creators.

Rather than unique flaws or “bad” features of Vaughn Plaza, we highlight these binaries to show the necessary lessons of inclusive placemaking. It should be impossible to imagine a space already marked by perfect inclusivity, in which centrality came without exposure, engagement came without solitude, and celebration came without the possibility of subversion. The ethical lapse marked by the critique would be to pretend that inclusion is possible from a first attempt at changing white space; or that centrality, engagement, and celebration are possible without exposure, solitude, and subversion—the former a “buzzword” version of inclusivity that lacks for recognizing the real, historically given and material constraints.

Sarah Adeyinka-Skold is assistant professor of Sociology at Furman University. Her research analyzes how inequalities are (re)produced in romantic relationships and institutional histories.

James Engelhardt is lecturer in English at Furman University whose work focuses on place-based writing, ecopoetics, and writing pedagogy.

Alyson Farzad-Phillips is assistant professor of communication studies at Furman University. As a scholar-teacher, she explores the nuances of public memory rhetoric, racial justice, and student protests with her students, both in the classroom and around campus.

Benjamin K. Haywood is the associate director of the Faculty Development Center at Furman University. Trained as an environmental geographer, his scholarship focuses on educational development and pedagogy, public engagement in science, and sense of place.

Brandon Inabinet is professor of communication studies at Furman University. He co-chaired the university’s Task Force on Slavery and Justice. His scholarship critiques power within texts from the history of rhetoric.

John A. McArthur is professor and chair of communication studies at Furman University. His research explores proxemics and the role of technology in our lived experiences of space and place.

Page 176 →Chiara Palladino is assistant professor of classics at Furman University. Her work maps spatial narratives of the premodern world, with an interest in digital humanities scholarship that bridges these insights with modern mapping and modeling strategies.

Whitni Simpson is a 2022 graduate of Furman University with a bachelor of science degree in sustainability and sociology. She is a J.D. candidate at Tulane Law School.

Claire Whitlinger is associate professor of sociology at Furman University. Her research examines the intersection between collective memory, racial identity, and social change.

1. 1. Emma Berger, “Joseph Vaughn Plaza Construction Underway,” The Paladin, October 12, 2020, https://thepaladin.news.
2. 2. Ronald Lee Fleming, The Art of Placemaking (New York: Merrill Publishers, 2007).
3. 3. Jon Spayde, “Public Art and Placemaking,” Public Art Review 24, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2012): 23. https://issuu.com/forecastpublicart/docs/par_47.
4. 4. Kathy Charmaz, “The Grounded Theory Method: An Explication and Interpretation,” in Contemporary Field Research: A Collection of Readings, ed. R. M. Emerson (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1983), 109–26; Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998).
5. 5. Barbara Bender, “Time and Landscape,” Current Anthropology 43, no. 4 (2002): 105. https://doi.org/10.1086/339561.
6. 6. Bianca C. Williams, Dian Squire, and Frank Tuitt, eds., Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education (New York: SUNY Press, 2021).
7. 7. Wendy Leo Moore, “The Mechanisms of White Space(s),” American Behavioral Scientist 64, no. 14 (December 2020): 1947. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220975080.
8. 8. Spayde, “Public Art and Placemaking,” 25.
9. 9. Brooke Neely and Michele Samura, “Social Geographies of Race: Connecting Race and Space,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 34, no. 11 (2011): 1933–52.10.1080/01419870.2011.559262.
10. 10. Neely and Samura, “Social Geographies of Race,” 1946.
11. 11. “Universities Studying Slavery,” University of Virginia: President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, https://slavery.virginia.edu.
12. 12. Marian Baker, “Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation: What Is the Furman Legacy?” The Paladin, October 26, 2016, https://thepaladin.news/.
13. 13. Deborah Allen, Laura Baker, T. Lloyd Benson, Teresa Nesbitt Cosby, Brandon Inabinet, Michael Jennings, Jonathan Kubakundimana, Shekinah Lightner, Jeffrey Makala, Chelsea McKelvey, Quincy Mix, Stephen O’Neill, Forrest M. Stu Page 177 →art, Andrew Teye, Courtney Thomas, Courtney Tollison, and Claire Whitlinger, Seeking Abraham: A Report of Furman University’s Task Force on Slavery and Justice (Greenville, SC: Furman University, 2018). https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/records-taskforce-slavery/1.
14. 14. Allen et al., Seeking Abraham, 39.
15. 15. Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 4.
16. 16. Max Clarke and Gary A. Fine, “‘A’ For APOLOGY: Slavery and the Collegiate Discourses of Remembrance—the Cases of Brown University and the University of Alabama,” History and Memory 22, no. 1 (2010): 81–112; Gary A. Fine, “Apology and Redress: Escaping the Dustbin of History in the Postsegregationist South,” Social Forces 91, no. 4 (2013): 1319–42. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/509338.
17. 17. Su L. Boatright-Horowitz, Marisa E. Marraccini, and Yvette Harps-Logan, “Teaching Antiracism: College Students’ Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Learning about White Privilege.” Journal of Black Studies 43, no. 8 (2012): 893–911. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934712463235.
18. 18. Joseph Vaughn, “Racial Integration at Furman: 21 Years Later,” recorded April 1986 on audio cassette. Religion in Life event of the Cultural Life Program. Furman Special Collections. Digital Recording (MP3).
19. 19. “Joseph Vaughn Plaza.” Furman University Libraries. November 29, 2021. https://libguides.furman.edu/library/policies/joseph-vaughn-plaza.
20. 20. Clark and Fine, “A for APOLOGY,” 106.
21. 21. Neely and Samura, “Social Geographies of Race,” 1938.
22. 22. Ibid., 1939.
23. 23. Spayde, “Public Art and Placemaking,” 25.
24. 24. Caroline Knowles, Race and Social Analysis (London: Sage, 2013), 80.
25. 25. Neely and Samura, “Social Geographies of Race,” 1939.
26. 26. Brian Neumann, “Progress, Pragmatism, and Power: Furman’s Struggle over Desegregation,” Commemorating Desegregation, Furman University. Online PDF, https://www.furman.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/169/2020/01/BrianNeumann.pdf (accessed June 1, 2022).
27. 27. Neumann, “Progress, Pragmatism, and Power.”
28. 28. Neely and Samura, “Social Geographies of Race,” 1945.
29. 29. Wendy Leo Moore, “The Mechanisms of White Space(s),” 1954.
30. 30. Alyson Farzad-Phillips, “Combatting White Supremacy on Campus: Racialized Counter-Memory and Student Protests in the 21st Century” (PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, 2022), 97.
31. 31. Sarita Chourey, “Gallery: Black History 2022 Month Yard Show Celebration,” Furman University News, March 2, 2022. https://news.furman.edu.
32. 32. Helena Aarts, “Racial Reckoning Revisits Campus with Bias Incidents,” The Paladin, November 19, 2021. https://thepaladin.news.
33. 33. Ibid., 1.
34. 34. Reilly Murtaugh, “Protest on Campus: Student Response to Racial Bias Incidents.” The Paladin, November 22, 2021. https://thepaladin.news/.
35. 35. Murtaugh, “Racial Reckoning,” 1.
36. 36. Page 178 →Asha Marie, “Asha Marie’s Short Remarks & Call to Action for Students 1/28/22,” Speech at Furman University, January 28, 2022.
37. 37. Marie, “Short Remarks,” 1.
38. 38. Marie, “Short Remarks,” 1.
39. 39. Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, “Commemorating a Difficult Past: Yitzhak Rabin’s Memorials,” American Sociological Review 67, no. 1 (2002): 31; also see Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi and Chana Teeger, “Unpacking the Unspoken: Silence in Collective Memory and Forgetting,” Social Forces 88, no. 3 (2010): 1103–22.
40. 40. Christina R. Steidl, “Integrating the Commemorative Field at Kent State,” American Sociological Review 78, no. 5 (2013): 768.

• Allen, Deborah, Laura Baker, T. Lloyd Benson, Teresa Nesbitt Cosby, Brandon Inabinet, Michael Jennings, Jonathan Kubakundimana, Shekinah Lightner, Jeffrey Makala, Chelsea McKelvey, Quincy Mix, Stephen O’Neill, Forrest M. Stuart, Andrew Teye, Courtney Thomas, Courtney Tollison, and Claire Whitlinger. Seeking Abraham: A Report of Furman University’s Task Force on Slavery and Justice. Greenville, SC: Furman University, 2018.
• Bender, Barbara. “Time and Landscape.” Current Anthropology 43, no. 4 (2002): 103–12. https://doi.org/10.1086/339561.
• Boatright-Horowitz, Su L., Marisa E. Marraccini, and Yvette Harps-Logan. “Teaching Antiracism: College Students’ Emotional and Cognitive Reactions to Learning about White Privilege.” Journal of Black Studies 43, no. 8 (2012): 893–911. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934712463235.
• Charmaz, Kathy. “The Grounded Theory Method: An Explication and Interpretation.” In Contemporary Field Research: A Collection of Readings, edited by R. M. Emerson, 109–26. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1983.
• Clarke, Max, and Gary A. Fine. “‘A’ For APOLOGY: Slavery and the Collegiate Discourses of Remembrance—the Cases of Brown University and the University of Alabama.” History and Memory 22, no. 1 (2010): 81–112.
• Connerton, Paul. How Societies Remember. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Farzad-Phillips, Alyson. “Combatting White Supremacy on Campus: Racialized Counter-Memory and Student Protests in the 21st Century.” PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, 2022.
• Fine, Gary A. “Apology and Redress: Escaping the Dustbin of History in the Post-segregationist South.” Social Forces 91, no. 4 (2013): 1319–42. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/509338.
• Fleming, Ronald Lee. The Art of Placemaking. New York: Merrill Publishers, 2007.
• Furman University Libraries. “Joseph Vaughn Plaza.” Last modified November 29, 2021. https://libguides.furman.edu/library/policies/joseph-vaughn-plaza.
• Knowles, Caroline. Race and Social Analysis. London: Sage, 2013.
• Marie, Asha. “Asha Marie’s Short Remarks & Call to Action for Students 1/28/22.” Speech. Furman University, January 28, 2021.
• Page 179 →Moore, Wendy Leo. “The Mechanisms of White Space(s).” American Behavioral Scientist 64, no. 14 (December 2020): 1946–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764220975080.
• Neely, Brooke, and Michele Samura. “Social Geographies of Race: Connecting Race and Space.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 34, no. 11 (2011): 1933–52. 10.1080/01419870.2011.559262.
• Neumann, Brian. “Progress, Pragmatism, and Power: Furman’s Struggle over Desegregation.” Commemorating Desegregation. https://www.furman.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/169/2020/01/BrianNeumann.pdf.
• Spayde, Jon. “Public Art and Placemaking.” Public Art Review 24, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2012): 23–25.
• Steidl, Christina R. “Integrating the Commemorative Field at Kent State.” American Sociological Review 78, no. 5 (2013): 749–72.
• Strauss, Anselm, and Juliet Corbin. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998.
• University of Virginia: President’s Commission on Slavery and the University. “Universities Studying Slavery.” https://slavery.virginia.edu.
• Vaughn, Joseph. “Racial Integration at Furman: 21 Years Later.” Interview recorded April 1986 on audio cassette. Religion in Life event of the Cultural Life Program. Furman Special Collections. Digital Recording (MP3).
• Vinitzky-Seroussi, Vered. “Commemorating a Difficult Past: Yitzhak Rabin’s Memorials.” American Sociological Review 67, no. 1 (2002): 30–51.
• Vinitzky-Seroussi, Vered, and Chana Teeger. “Unpacking the Unspoken: Silence in Collective Memory and Forgetting.” Social Forces 88, no. 3 (2010): 1103–1122.
• Williams, Bianca C., Dian Squire, and Frank Tuitt, eds. Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education. New York: SUNY Press, 2021.