Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey has renamed its College Avenue Apartments to honor Sojourner Truth. Born into slavery, Sojourner Truth became a leading abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights. While a slave, Sojourner Truth and her parents were owned by relatives of the first president of Rutgers University.
The Sojourner Truth Apartments house 440 upper-class students. Azra Dees, a sophomore in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers, stated that “it shows a dedication to the history that we have and moving forward. And I’ll always know that I have a meaning behind the building that I’m living in, rather than just being a beautiful new building.”
In addition, the former Kilmer Library on Rutgers-New Brunswick’s Livingston Campus in Piscataway has been renamed the James Dickson Carr Library after Rutgers’ first African-American graduate. Carr completed his degree in 1892 and went on to attend Columbia Law School.
Also a walkway on the main campus was named Will’s Way, in honor of an enslaved man named Will – no last name for him is known – who laid the foundation of Rutgers’administration building in the fall of 1808.
A video on the opening of the Sojourner Truth Apartments can be seen below.
