© 2024 Connecticut Public

FCC Public Inspection Files:
WEDH · WEDN · WEDW · WEDY
WECS · WEDW-FM · WNPR · WPKT · WRLI-FM · WVOF
Public Files Contact · ATSC 3.0 FAQ
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Cancer Answers is hosted by Dr. Anees Chagpar, Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology and Director of The Breast Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and Dr. Francine Foss, Professor of Medical Oncology. The show features a guest cancer specialist who will share the most recent advances in cancer therapy and respond to listeners questions. Myths, facts and advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment are discussed, with a different focus eachweek. Nationally acclaimed specialists in various types of cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment discuss common misconceptions about the disease and respond to questions from the community.Listeners can submit questions to be answered on the program at canceranswers@yale.edu or by leaving a message at (888) 234-4YCC. As a resource, archived programs from 2006 through the present are available in both audio and written versions on the Yale Cancer Center website.

Yale's Calhoun College: History Lesson or Institutional Racism?

GK
/
Creative Commons
Calhoun College at Yale University.
Calhoun was a fervent proponent of slavery.

Credit Jane Long / Yale Daily News
/
Yale Daily News
Chris Rabb, Yale '92, was able to get this stained glass in the common room at Calhoun College changed. The original glass depicted a black slave in shackles kneeling before the pro-slavery statesman, John C. Calhoun.

As South Carolina considers removing the Confederate flag flying over the state Capitol, some are questioning why a building at Yale bears the name of one of this country's most passionate advocates for slavery.

In 1932, Yale University transformed the former divinity school building into Calhoun College, naming the residential college after 1804 Yale grad John C. Calhoun. Calhoun later went on to be Vice President of the United States, and a U.S. Senator from South Carolina.

Calhoun was also an unapologetic slave owner and fervent proponent of slavery.

For more than 50 years, a stained glass in the common room of Calhoun College depicted a black man in shackles kneeling before Calhoun.

"I was insulted. I was shocked. I was mad as hell," said Yale alum Chris Rabb, who is African-American on WNPR's Colin McEnroe Show. He was proud that he was able to get the image of the black slave removed from the stained glass, but his family thought otherwise.

"I was insulted. I was shocked. I was mad as hell."
Chris Rabb

"They said: 'No; what you did was wrong. We need these reminders of institutional racism. We don't want any successive generation of black folk, or anyone else coming through Yale thinking that Yale is anything other than what it is,'" Rabb said.

Listen below to the segment with Rabb on the show:

Jonathan Holloway, Yale Professor of American History and Chair of Yale's Department of African American Studies, said that in the past, he has agreed with Rabb's family. 

In an article last year in Yale Alumni Magazine, Holloway said that Yale should retain the name Calhoun College "as an open sore, frankly, for the purpose of having conversations about this... I want to hold Yale University accountable for this."

"The historian in me sees with alarm our national propensity to forget ugliness for the convenience of the modern moment."
Jonathan Holloway

But in a statement sent to WNPR, Holloway indicated that he may have changed his mind:

I have to confess, however, that the events of the last 18 months and especially the monstrosity in Charleston have rattled me. Yes, the historian in me still sees with alarm our national propensity to forget ugliness for the convenience of the modern moment, but the citizen in me just keeps seeing example after example of an inability to imagine that African Americans have a humanity that ought to be respected.

"I don't think that when people see the name Calhoun, they walk by it, and then that prompts them to say, well, who is Calhoun, and what did he do?" said Khalilah Brown-Dean, associate professor of political science at Quinnipiac University. 

Credit Chion Wolf / WNPR
/
WNPR
Khalilah Brown-Dean in a WNPR file photo.
"Having those repeated names and symbols, to many, is just a further infliction of hurt."
Khalilah Brown-Dean

"We are not having those conversations, so having those repeated names and symbols, to many, is just a further infliction of hurt. It is not producing conversation," Brown-Dean said.

Karen Peart, deputy press secretary for Yale's Office of Public Affairs and Communications, said the university has no official statement regarding Calhoun College, but referenced Holloway's statements in last year's alumni magazine article.

A sculpture of John C. Calhoun is mounted on Yale's Harkness tower, along with such notable alums as Nathan Hale and Eli Whitney.

Monuments and tributes to Calhoun across the nation have drawn protest in wake of the Charleston church shooting. An online petition calling for Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis to be renamed recently surfaced. In Charleston’s Marion Square, a statue of Calhoun was recently defaced with the word "racist" in red spray paint.

Tags
Ray Hardman is Connecticut Public’s Arts and Culture Reporter. He is the host of CPTV’s Emmy-nominated original series Where Art Thou? Listeners to Connecticut Public Radio may know Ray as the local voice of Morning Edition, and later of All Things Considered.

Stand up for civility

This news story is funded in large part by Connecticut Public’s Members — listeners, viewers, and readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

We hope their support inspires you to donate so that we can continue telling stories that inform, educate, and inspire you and your neighbors. As a community-supported public media service, Connecticut Public has relied on donor support for more than 50 years.

Your donation today will allow us to continue this work on your behalf. Give today at any amount and join the 50,000 members who are building a better—and more civil—Connecticut to live, work, and play.

Related Content
Connecticut Public’s journalism is made possible, in part by funding from Jeffrey Hoffman and Robert Jaeger.