Yale Divinity School has renamed one of its largest classrooms after an escaped slave who attended classes at Yale in the 1830s.
James William Charles Pennington was born into slavery in Maryland in 1807. According to his memoir Fugitive Blacksmith, Pennington plotted his escape shortly after witnessing his father being whipped. He fled slavery at the age of 19, heading north through Pennsylvania, where he was taken in and taught to read and write by a Quaker couple.
He pursued his studies further in New York City, where slavery was banned. Pennington later became a schoolteacher on Long Island. It was there that he had a religious epiphany, and was determined to study at Yale Divinity School and become a minister.
He was refused admission, but managed to broker a compromise that allowed him to audit classes, provided that he never set foot in the library, and never speak in class.
Yale Divinity School Dean Gregory Sterling said the renaming of classroom s100 after James Pennington is particularly fitting, given the restrictions the University put on the escaped slave's education.
"The man whose voice could not be heard in a classroom, will now have his name repeated every day at this school," Sterling said at the renaming ceremony.
Pennington later became an ordained minister and a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement. While serving as a pastor in Hartford, he raised funds to support the captives of the Amistad. He died in 1870.
Former Yale University Chaplain, the Reverend Jerry Streets called the renaming an "important, powerful, courageous and ethical act."
"It is one we should all celebrate," said Rev. Streets, "and I hope, now that I am no longer the chaplain of Yale University, that the University will also be inspired to do the right thing. There are other naming opportunities within the broader life of the University."
After months of protests by students, faculty, and local activists, Yale University recently formed a committee to consider changing the name of Calhoun College. The residential college is named for former Vice President and fervent supporter of slavery John C. Calhoun, who graduated from Yale in 1804.
