All Current Convocation Hall Portraits
With two exceptions, the portraits hanging today on Convocation's walls are legacy memorials to slavery and the contributions of the Episcopal Church and the University to the preservation and perpetuation of slavery before emancipation and the Lost Cause after emancipation. The exceptions are that of Hugh M. Thompson, the second Bishop of Mississippi (1887), who was teaching at Nashotah House seminary in Wisconsin during the Civil War, and that of Wylie Blount Miller, a post-Civil War benefactor. In 2018 Miller's portrait replaced that of Civil War General Edmund Kirby-Smith, which was removed to the university special collections.
Otherwise, the portraits memorialize men who made important contributions to the founding and prosperity of the University, but who also were enslavers (or sons of enslavers) and supported the Confederacy, usually through military or other service.
Click on the memorial items below to learn more about the portraits and the men they pay tribute to.
