Troy University announced Wednesday that a university building will be renamed in honor of the late Congressman John Lewis who tried unsuccessfully to attend the then-all white school in the 1950s.
The Troy University Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to rename historic Bibb Graves Hall — now named for a former governor who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan— in honor of Lewis. While Lewis became a longtime Georgia congressman, he was a native of Pike County, Alabama, and grew up not far from the university. The civil rights icon died July 17 at age 80.
The university said the name change is effective immediately and the building will now bear the name John Robert Lewis Hall.
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