Memorial Structure

Named Building

Lost Cause

Enslaver

Jim Crow

Palmer, Benjamin Morgan

Palmer Hall; a building dedicated to Benjamin Morgan Palmer

Palmer Hall was named after Benjamin Morgan Palmer, "the father of [the] institution," according to the Palmer Memorial Tablet. Palmer was a staunch advocate of Presbyterian higher education after the Civil War and was instrumental in the re-founding of Stewart College in Clarksville, Tennessee as Southwestern Presbyterian University in 1875. He served on the SPU Board of Directors for many years.

Palmer was mainly known, however, as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans, where he served beginning in 1855. Before and during the Civil War, he preached and taught that the preservation of slavery was Southerners' "divine trust." After the War, he became an advocate of racial separation and white supremacy and a leading exponent of the Lost Cause.

Palmer Hall, built in Palmer's honor and funded by the people of New Orleans, was dedicated the day Rhodes College opened its doors in Memphis, September 24, 1925. Since that time, the structure has been the college's main administration building and remains the most prominent building on campus.

In 2017 a commission was created to investigate the possibility of changing the name of Palmer Hall and in 2019 the Rhodes College Board of Trustees voted to rename the building Southwestern Hall.

Palmer Hall (since 2019 Southwestern Hall) is a 4-story building in the Collegiate Gothic style. It houses classrooms, faculty offices, and administrative offices.

To the Glory of God
and
In Grateful Recognition
of the generosity of the peo-
ple of New Orleans by whom
this building was erected
in Memory of
Benjamin Morgan Palmer
for forty five years pastor of
The First Presbyterian Church
of New Orleans
Born in Charleston, SC 1818
Died in New Orleans 1902

The Father of this institution
which was the first to place the
Bible as a required textbook in its
curriculum and which through all
the years continues to enshrine
this ideal of Christian education

A Patriot, A Scholar, An Educator
an Ecclesiastical Statesman
and a pulpit Orator unsurpassed.

September 1925

April 2019

1890-1945: Era of the Lost Cause, Jim Crow legal segregation and discrimination, and organized anti-Black racism

2000-Present: Confederate Memorialization in the Era of Universities Studying Slavery and the Black Lives Matter Movement

Rhodes College; Memphis, Tennessee

Altered - Renamed