More than a hundred years ago, in 1911, University of Florida Professor of History Enoch Banks was hounded out of the university for his views on the Civil War. Last spring students from UF’s chapter of Phi Alpha Theta (PAT), the history honors society, paid tribute to Dr. Banks by spearheading an initiative to rename the department conference room in his honor.
Dr. Banks published a paper on the Civil War called “A Semi-Centennial View of Secession” in The Independent in 1911. The article suggested that the southern states bore at least some blame for the Civil War for seceding from the union. The article scandalized those in the area who remained sympathetic to the Confederacy, and Dr. Banks resigned under pressure from the university leadership. He died later that year at the age of 34.
A group of history students in PAT learned of Dr. Banks’s story in 2020 from their class with Dr. Steve Noll. After they researched Dr. Banks’s story, Kayla Cook, Morgan Peltier, and Briana Wiggins wrote in a proposal to the department, “It is only appropriate to name the department conference room after Professor Banks to remember what he had to sacrifice to even teach and research without interference.” The students’ hard work in researching the case and their persuasive writing convinced the history faculty and administrators at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. On April 7, 2022, the Department of History held a naming ceremony for the Enoch Marvin Banks Conference Room.
The Banks Conference Room serves as a reminder and an inspiration. Dr. Banks’s story reminds us of the value of protecting academic freedom. The efforts of the PAT students in this initiative show the value of research and perseverance in creating change in the world.
Courtesy Independent Alligator.