By Stephy Mahoney | Staff Writer
Baylor is set to hold the unveiling ceremony of their memorabilia statues honoring the Rev. Robert Gilbert and Barbara Walker — the university’s first Black graduates — on April 4. Artist Benjamin Victor has been working on this project since he was selected over a year ago.
The first Black graduates statue has been in the works diligently since the completion of the Commission on Historic Campus representations back in 2020, Dr. Malcolm Foley, special advisor to the president for equity and campus engagement, said.
On Feb. 8, 2022, President Linda Livingstone announced the artist for the first Black graduates statue after the university released its plans to place it in front of Tidwell Bible Building.
“After receiving recommendations, we went through a selection process and chose Ben Victor, and he has been sculpting these statues over the course of the last year,” Foley said. “These [sculptures] are some significant physical ways to indicate, on campus, not only where we have been but where we want to be. We spent 118 years as a segregated institution; dismantling that culture requires both physical and systematic work.”
Victor, an artist from Boise, Idaho was brought on board to sculpt and capture the memory of the Rev. Gilbert and Walker back in February 2022. Victor has been sculpting for over 20 years and has completed four pieces for the U.S. Capitol along with multiple other works all over the country and internationally.
Victor said Gilbert and Walker are both inspiring people who should be honored because of how influential they are as trailblazers to the university and students all over. He said they truly made an impact on the future of Baylor and deserve to be recognized greatly.
“They, and people like them, have helped move our entire country to a more erodible future,” Victor said. “It’s really an honor as an artist to get to create sculptures commemorating them and their legacies.”
Foley said the importance Gilbert and Walker hold at the university is their willingness to “break the initial barrier,” and allow students to learn more about the history and the physical representation of the kind of place Baylor wants to be.
“The physical changes on campus are best understood as indications of what is to come and invitations of welcome,” Foley said. “There was a time in Baylor’s history when I, and those who look like me, were not welcomed. These statues are indications that time is over.”
They reflect the commitment of Baylor to thoughtfully consider and implement the Commission’s recommendation to use physical representations to better communicate the many contributions of Black students, faculty and staff throughout Baylor’s history.
“They were both able to use their Baylor educations to do what the Lord called them to do, whether in service to the Church in Rev. Gilbert’s case or in social work in Ms. Walker’s case,” Foley said. “We are reminded that work towards justice and equity is ongoing, not a box-checking exercise.”
A BaylorProud post said the statues are not a solution to the issues surrounding race at Baylor, however, they honor brave people like Gilbert and Walker for taking the first step toward making progress in history.
“It’s amazing studying this history because we find out the truth about this separation that didn’t need to exist, yet we are continuing to overcome it,” Victor said.
