GMU Dedicates Memorial For People Enslaved By University's Namesake

FAIRFAX, VA — George Mason University held a ceremony Monday to dedicate a memorial built on its Fairfax campus to remember the people who were enslaved by the person after whom the university is named.

George Mason IV was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787. He also was an enslaver of more than 100 people at his Gunston Hall home in Fairfax County.

The Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial is located on the campus’s recently renovated Wilkins Plaza, named for the late civil rights leader and George Mason University professor journalist Roger Wilkins.

On Monday, several hundred people assembled in Wilkins Plaza for the monument’s dedication.

“The Enslaved People of George Mason Memorial represents so much about who we are as a university,” GMU President Gregory Washington said in a speech at the dedication. “Inquisitive students who seek truth, undergraduate research programs that support these academic pursuits, faculty who collaborate, nurture and challenge our students, and a university community fueled by the shared thrill of discovery and the determination to turn their efforts into positive and sustainable change.

Gabrielle Tayac, an associate professor of public history and a Piscataway tribal citizen, led a water ceremony at Monday's dedication where she acknowledged that the land on which the university was built was originally inhabited by indigenous people.

At Monday's event, Rev. Jeffrey O. Johnson Sr., pastor at nearby Mount Calvary Baptist Church, said he hopes the memorial will push other universities and institutions to move forward and “that we will not bring the founding fathers down, but in pride and dignity, we will lift their servants up.”