the walls, duke university staff

By Mumbi Kanyogo

George Wall was a former enslaved person who worked at Duke as a janitor and general handyman for sixty years.[1] He was hired at Trinity College in 1870 as a fourteen year-old boy by then-President Braxton Craven and was one of the few employees who moved with Trinity College to Durham County in 1892.[2] His son, George Frank Wall, born in 1871, helped his father clean and make beds for students at Trinity and later worked in a dining hall. In his will, Wall allocated $100 (now the equivalent of $1,200) to the university. He wanted to “impress on other colored men, the fine and good relations between Christian White people and Christian Negroes. For seventy-five years I have been employed by said institution and never a cross word but Christian Harmony.”[3] The money would later be added to a scholarship fund at a time when Duke did not admit any African-American students.[4] This story is important because it celebrates the contributions African Americans have made to the University even when they were barred from enrolling. The multigenerational aspect of the story also is a powerful reminder of how Duke still needs to foster an equitable, just work place for its staff.

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[1]. “Faithful Employee Bequeaths Hundred Dollars to University,” Duke Alumni Register, July 1946

[2]. Gillispie. Valerie, “One Hundred Reasons,” Duke Magazine, October 4 2012, http://dukemagazine.duke.edu/article/one-hundred-reasons; and Brocklin, Elizabeth Van., “The Legacy of Duke’s first Janitor,” Duke Magazine, March 3, 2015, http://dukemagazine.duke.edu/article/the-legacy-of-dukes-first-janitor.

[3]. “Faithful Employee Bequeaths Hundred Dollars to University,” Duke Alumni Register, July 1946

[4]. Gillispie, Valerie, “One Hundred Reasons,” Duke Magazine, October 4 2012, http://dukemagazine.duke.edu/article/one-hundred-reasons