By Michela Moscufo

(Reuters] – Columbia University is adding historical markers to its four residence halls in order to recognize the legacies and racism of slaves and racists and to remember African American students. This was announced by a Columbia University professor on Tuesday.

Part of a larger university-wide effort initiated by President Lee Bollinger in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the markers include signage at John Jay Hall residence halls and 50 Haven Avenue. These signs, which were formerly Bard Hall, note that John Jay, and Samuel Bard, slave owners, had strong ties with the university.

Furnald hall will have a marker that tells the story about a day in 1924 where men from the Ku Klux Klan dressed in hoods and burned a wooden cross seven feet high near their dormitory. Furnald, at that time, was the home of Frederick W. Wells (law student at Columbia), who at the moment lived on campus. Students ran to Furnald’s door shouting racist insults, as he burned the cross.

The high percentage of students of color, among them poet Langston Hughes, who lived at Hartley Hall in the early 20th century will be commemorated with a plaque there, according to Columbia Professor Thai Jones, who taught a “Columbia & Slavery” course and has led the effort to erect the markers.

Columbia will join Harvard Law School, Rutgers University, the University of Mississippi and the University of South Carolina in erecting plaques in recent years acknowledging the institutions’ relationship to slavery.

Jones said that Columbia’s marker will be installed as permanent plaques in the fall, initially as digital monitors.