Ainissa Ramirez file photo
Edward Bouchet, as painted on Henry St. by artist Kwadwo Adae.
Robert Lucas: "My main point is rethinking Eli Whitney."
Should Whitney Avenue hold onto the name of the cotton-gin inventor who played a key role in the expansion of slavery?
Not according to a Yale business student, who’s pointed to the university’s first African American doctorate holder as an alternative namesake for the East Rock corridor.
Robert Lucas is a 33-year-old Masters of Business Arts (MBA) student at Yale’s School of Management (SOM) set to graduate this spring. He currently works as an employee of the World Bank in Washington, D.C.
He’s perhaps an unlikely voice calling for the university to rethink its wide use of and identification with the name Eli Whitney, but he’s begun a campaign to do precisely that. As part of Tuesday’s latest Board of Alders meeting, Lucas submitted a communication calling for the name of Whitney Avenue to be changed to Bouchet Avenue.
Eli Whitney was a 1792 Yale graduate whose invention of the labor-saving cotton gin, despite an opposite intention, further embedded slavery into the economy of the South, exacerbating conditions that led to the Civil War. That history troubles Lucas, who also has a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University.
So, after penning a guest editorial in the Yale Daily News, Lucas took another step this week in his one-man campaign.
In a letter to the Board of Alders, he has formally asked New Haven to consider changing the name of Whitney Avenue — at least the section that runs prominently in front of SOM — to Bouchet Avenue.
The new name would honor Edward Bouchet, a Yale graduate who in 1876 became the first African American in the entire country to receive a doctorate, and in physics no less.
“The Whitney Family’s impact on American history is to be studied, not celebrated,” Lucas wrote in his editorial. “The cotton gin, the Colt revolver [which Whitney’s son developed], and the family’s business practices do not represent the best of Yale. The University can and must do better. Yale should rethink marketing Eli Whitney for its academic programs and support renaming Whitney Avenue along campus, which includes SOM and Science Hill. Yale’s centuries-long history is brimming with candidates who can serve this role.”
In his petition to the alders and in his editorial, Lucas suggests Edward Bouchet as an appropriate substitute, but Lucas is not married to the Bouchet idea – let students and faculty have a vote and decide, he says, on a candidate who is worthier and embodies more of the university’s professed values.
Nor is he naïve about potential resistance or the jurisdictional complexities tied up in asking the city to get on board with renaming a section of what is by law a state road. But before he graduates and formally leaves town, Lucas is committed to at least igniting the process.
Here are some highlights from a phone interview the Independent recently conducted with Lucas:
Independent: How did you get started on this project?
Lucas: I’m interested in history and have gone all over Yale in the past two years, went up to the Eli Whitney Museum, and it dawned on me, putting the dots together, what it [the name] means and what it should be.
Your editorial is not only about a name change but how Yale deploys some names and not others.
There are two issues here. One is how Yale uses Eli Whitney’s name, that’s what the article is about. I bring in Bouchet’s story. His [Bouchet’s] face is on a mural, there will be a play about him later this spring, there’s a portrait [in the entryway of the Sterling Library], and a professor commissioned, in 1998, a tombstone for his unmarked grave. There have been things to bring his story up, but it hasn’t quite made it.
But Eli Whitney! There are Eli Whitney Scholars, a program that gives financial resources for kids who come [as the original Eli Whitney did to Yale College] at a later age, veterans or entrepreneurs, unusual scholars. They still use his name for that. And the history of the cotton gin is NOT what they promote; they promote the father as a non-traditional [Yalie]. To be frank, Eli Whitney is not famous for being at the college at age 24, it’s the invention.
You’re not suggesting that the Eli Whitney Scholars program name be changed?
No, I’m not here to go after the Eli Whitney Scholars. But Yale has enough sway to determine the name of an avenue that runs through a significant part of its campus. Names matter. If you walk into SOM, there’s so much intentionality, the naming of bricks, every room has a name, the history of what names mean. Yet on their main sign [in front of the main edifice, Evans Hall], there is no intentionality. Words matter. Just going around the university you realize that. Eli Whitney is a blind spot. It’s not to be prescriptive as to what the name is or should be, but it shouldn’t be Whitney. My main point is rethinking Eli Whitney.
New Haven has other fascinating entrepreneurs, William Lanson, a former slave for example [who built Long Wharf in the early 19th century, among other achievements], but Bouchet is good too.
Bouchet would fit, his physics degree, the business and society [values he represents]. There are 300 years of Yale history; another could fit. There could be a process where students and faculty could vote. Bouchet is great. It’s really not only changing the street name. To bring about change, you at least have to agree there’s a problem.
Portrait of Edward Bouchet presides over traffic in the entryway at Yale's Sterling Memorial Library
So how’s it going? Have you heard from students, faculty, the alders in the area who need to be involved in a name-changing process?
There are three alders who border [SOM], wards 7, 19, 21. I messaged all three and have heard from [Ward 7 Alder] Eli Sabin and Ward 21 [Alder Troy Streater]. There’s not a lot of definition to the process, you need eligibility. I know maybe I need 250 signatures. And I did hear from Al Lucas [the legislative director at the Board of Alders] that I need a petition showing a majority of owners on the street support a name change. That raises a ton of questions. Would they change just part of the street? Yale’s property ends at Edwards, or would it [a name change] have to extend to the New Haven line? A good thing is that [if this came about] Eli Whitney Avenue would still exist; it would still be on the Hamden side. It’s unclear who names and who maintains.
What about students and faculty at SOM? What are your next steps?
Other students at SOM have been supportive. I’m trying to get support from student groups, to begin to get a good showing. It’s really not only changing the street name. It’ll take time to convince people. It’s a blind spot, but it’s attainable.
Have you heard any response from the university?
Nothing from the university yet. But words matter. Just going around the university you realize that. Yale does use Eli Whitney’s name purposely to market its programs, to affiliate itself with the inventor of the cotton gin. They should not. They should stop marketing their programs with Eli Whitney. And in addition, they should support changing the street name because it doesn’t comport with SOM [values], which are to educate people for business and society. I mean they share the same avenue with Eli Whitney’s gun armory. We need to be a little more intentional.
Thank you very much.
Lucas’s request has been assigned to the City Services and Environmental Policy Committee, according to aldermanic staff. Also noticed on the matter were the City Plan Commission, Transportation Traffic & Parking Department and Public Works. The next step for Lucas will be to attend a hearing, at a date to be determined, and for him to demonstrate support for the request from the owners on the street and other community members. The city does have the right to name state roads in town. The aldermanic staffer added, however, that Lucas would be encouraged to engage state officials as well.
Just a load of progressives crap.