From Hardenbergh Hall to Sojourner Truth Apartments, many campus spaces at Rutgers are linked with the history of slavery, dispossession, and racial injustice. Other spaces are also connected with the Black freedom struggle and the hard work of making Rutgers a more welcoming place for all.
In 2017, following the publication of Scarlet and Black, Vol. 1: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History, several campus landmarks in New Brunswick were named in honor of African Americans. The newly named landmarks are:
- Will’s Way (Old Queens building, College Avenue Campus)
- Sojourner Truth Apartments (College Avenue Campus)
- James Dickson Carr Library (Livingston Campus)
In 2021, the university announced a series of historical markers acknowledging how the university’s early benefactors profited from the slave economy. These markers honor the lives of enslaved individuals connected with certain building and campus namesakes. The locations for the historical markers are:
- Frelinghuysen Hall (College Avenue Campus)
- Hardenbergh Hall (College Avenue Campus)
- Livingston Campus (in front of Livingston Student Center)
- Wood Lawn Mansion (Douglass Campus)
Following the 2021 publication of Scarlet and Black, Vol. 3: Making Black Lives Matter at Rutgers, 1945–2020, the Scarlet and Black research team proposed a series of historical markers to commemorate Black student activism on campus, including markers to be placed in front of Conklin Hall at Rutgers–Newark and in front of the Paul Robeson Library at Rutgers–Camden. Land Acknowledgement signs honoring the ancestral territory of the Lenape have also been proposed for placement around campus.