OXFORD, Ga. — Language Hall, located on the campus of Oxford College, will be renamed to honor the later Judge Horace J. Johnson, Emory University officials announced Monday.

The name change is one of several pending across the Emory University campuses in Atlanta and Oxford in response to recent racial and social justice advisory committee reports.

Emory University President Gregory L. Fenves announced in October the formation of two advisory committees related to the university’s racial and social justice initiatives, one being the Task Force on Untold Stories and Disenfranchised Populations and the second being University Committee on Naming Honors. Committees were diversely made up of university leadership, faculty, staff, students, alumni. 

The task force was enlisted to “review opportunities for recognizing and memorializing contributions by enslaved persons whose labor helped build the Emory campus, and their descendants, as well as Indigenous nations and peoples on whose lands Emory’s campus was erected.”

After committees shared their reports earlier this spring, Fenves chose to take immediate action by executing the following changes:

• Develop plans for twin memorials on the Atlanta and Oxford campuses to honor the labor of enslaved individuals who helped build the university in its earliest days.
• Explore the adoption of an official land acknowledgment statement to recognize the university’s location on the homelands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
• Rename the Longstreet-Means residence hall, which bears the name of Emory’s second president (1839–1848), Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, as Eagle Hall. This change was based, “in part, on Longstreet’s defense of slavery, particularly while he served as Emory president.
• Rename Language Hall, at Oxford College, in honor of Horace J. Johnson Jr.

According to a news release from the university, the task force report anchored its recommendations “on the knowledge that most of the original faculty and officers of Emory College, many of them Methodist clergymen, enslaved both African Americans and Native Americans. In addition, the university’s Atlanta and Oxford campuses were located on Muscogee (Creek) land, during a time in which the Muscogee (Creek) and Ani’yunwi’ya (Cherokee) peoples were undergoing forced removal.”

The task force also recommended that “to build an inclusive environment and future for the university, Emory must reach out to the living descendants of these communities, as well as surrounding communities, and work to implement transformative initiatives.”

The proposal to rename Language Hall at Oxford College to honor Johnson was a unanimous recommendation made by the committee and fully supported by Fenves, who said  Johnson “dedicated his life to public service, and his many achievements reflect the Emory mission to ‘create, preserve, teach and apply knowledge in the service of humanity.’”

Johnson was a revered native of Newton County who grew up in the Sand Hill Community. He was a graduate of Oxford College who later went on to earn his Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia School of Law. Johnson became the first Black person to serve as a Superior Court judge in the Alcovy Judicial Circuit, which covers Newton and Walton counties, when former Gov. Roy Barnes appointed Johnson to the bench in 2002. 

Johnson died suddenly July 1, 2020, as result of cardiac arrest. He was 61.

Johnson Hall at Oxford College will be dedicated during a ceremony slated for October, the news release stated. 

Oxford College Dean Douglas A. Hicks said he was happy to see Fenves back the decision to honor Johnson — an alumnus who Hicks said always displayed continued support of the college. 

"Part of the Emory community’s shared commitment to equity, inclusion and diversity is thoughtfully considering whom we choose to honor by recognizing those who have lived our values," he said. "In that spirit, I am pleased that President Fenves supported, and the Board of Trustees approved, that Language Hall will be renamed in honor of Oxford alum (’77) Horace J. Johnson, Jr. 

"I like to think that Horace’s time at Oxford prepared him for a lifelong commitment to public service in a truly remarkable life and career," Hicks added. "Among his many contributions to our community, he served on Oxford’s Board of Counselors for almost 30 years. And we had looked forward to having him speak at commencement last year before the event was cancelled due to COVID-19. His legacy of mentoring students, engaging the Board of Counselors, and serving the Newton community will be celebrated on Oxford’s quad." 

Other names in use by the university are currently under the president’s review. Included among those are:

• Atticus Greene Haygood, the eighth president of Emory College (1875-1884). The name is associated with Haygood Hall on the Oxford campus, and the Haygood-Hopkins Gate and Haygood Drive on the Atlanta campus. 
• George Foster Pierce, the university’s third president (1848-1854). Naming honors include Pierce Drive on the Atlanta campus, Pierce Street on the Oxford campus and the Pierce Chair of Religion.
• L. Q. C. Lamar, an Emory College of Arts and Sciences graduate, a U.S. senator from Mississippi, a U.S. representative, a Confederate official, Secretary of the Interior and an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. For several decades, the law school bore his name. Today, three chairs at the law school bear his name.
• Robert Yerkes, a comparative psychologist and eugenicist. The Yerkes National Primate Research Center bears his name.