With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited
Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ is adding to its understanding of its history. The college, with a distinctively strong community, is honoring those whose acknowledgment has waited decades or more than a century.
Enslaved individuals farmed the college’s land, washed and cooked for faculty and students. Others who were enslaved made the bricks for Davidson’s first buildings, including five prominent structures that still stand: Phi and Eu halls, Elm and Oak Row and the President’s House. Their names were often unrecorded, but their thumbprints on the bricks are still visible today.
When the Civil War ended slavery, some of these individuals served as paid employees of the college. Davidson’s leaders upheld Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation and unequal pay on campus.
The sculpture, With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited, serves as a reminder of a rarely spoken part of the college's history. It recognizes and bring those previously excluded members of the community into the Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ story. We do that with narratives and with physical space.
The campus is adorned with stately buildings, thoughtfully designed spaces and captivating artwork that recognize countless contributors to Ë¿¹ÏÊÓƵ. Now, the memorial stands alongside them to honor those whose labor helped construct and sustain the institution to which so many are devoted. It underscores the college’s commitment in its Statement of Purpose to honor the dignity and worth of every person.
Marked with years of labor and wear, a pair of hands cradle a sanctuary, holding visitors in the palm of history.
The memorial is among the college’s efforts to learn from the past and build the institution’s future. New courses and community programs have been developed. Students and faculty have launched sponsored research, and a nearby farmhouse and land, connected to the college’s origins and where the enslaved once labored, is being transformed into a laboratory for research and learning.
The memorial is located in a previously underutilized portion of campus. Students used to pass by without knowing the history of the buildings or the grounds that were built and maintained by enslaved people. Now, they can engage with the memorial and Oak Row, a building where the thumbprints of the enslaved individuals who made the bricks used in the building’s construction are still visible. Oak Row features exhibits that highlight the history of the college from its founding to the present and will provide a space where visitors can share their stories.
The memorial and Oak Row are accessible to students and welcoming to the Town of Davidson community, which includes descendants of these individuals and those who worked at the college in the decades after the Civil War.
The memorial, a sculpture by Hank Willis Thomas, is a collaboration between the artist and the design firm Perkins&Will. The sculpture depicts two work-worn hands of cast bronze, its patina intended to reinforce the aged character of the hands of enslaved and exploited individuals. It was funded through the generosity of donors.
On Oct. 23, 2025, hundreds of people gathered between buildings built from bricks bearing the thumbprints of enslaved laborers for a ceremony dedicating a new memorial in their honor. With These Hands: A Memorial to the Enslaved and Exploited serves as a place to remember and reflect upon those whose labor helped build the college and serve its students and faculty.
Recording of the March 30, 2023 symposium: Unveiling the Commemoration Design Concept