We send hearty congratulations to new University of Richmond President Kevin F. Hallock for the bold actions taken last week by the university’s Board of Trustees to remove the names of slaveholders and segregationists from six campus buildings.

This is a giant step for the university and the board, which just last year, refused to take down the names of the racists honored by the buildings.

And it is a significant victory for University of Richmond students, including the Black Student Coalition and several student government groups, who in April 2019 – long before the nationwide racial justice demonstrations following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in May 2020 — passed resolutions calling for a name change on two buildings honoring Rev. Robert Ryland and Douglas Southall Freeman.

Rev. Ryland, the first president of the school, was a slave owner who profited also by renting out some of his slaves to the university. He invested his money in Confederate war bonds and convinced the college to use its endowment to do the same. He and the school nearly ended up bankrupt when the South surrendered, ending the Civil War, and the bonds became worthless.

Mr. Freeman was a UR alumnus and later a trustee and board rector who was a staunch segregationist and supporter of the eugenics movement. He won the first of two Pulitzer Prizes in 1935 for his four-volume biography of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A Richmond newspaper editor and radio commentator, he spread his racist views in the community for more than three decades.

These two men, while instrumental in the history of the university, don’t reflect the values espoused by the university or its students, and their names are being removed from the buildings along with those of four others who didn’t believe in the humanity and equality of Black people.

This is a major win, not just for the private university tucked away in the West End, but for the university’s alumni and the city as a whole. Both UR and the city will be viewed as more progressive places, stepping up to acknowledge the sins of the past; to respect the humanity of all, including Black people and other people of color; and to embrace the strength of diversity of today and tomorrow.

We applaud the UR community. The change was overdue.