R. E. B. Baylor

Baylor held enslaved people, and the university now says so. Its Commission on Historic Campus Representations, formed in 2020, found that Baylor's founders and early leaders, including Judge Baylor, were slaveholders. In 2021 the regents kept the university's name and left his statue on Founders Mall. A plaque acknowledging his history as a slaveholder was later added to the statue. In 2025 the university dedicated a Memorial to Enslaved Persons there, with 33 illuminated openings, one for each known person enslaved by its founders, Baylor among them.

What the plaque says

R. E. B. Baylor (Front) Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor 1791-1873. Founder of Baylor University under the Republic of Texas 1845, donor of the first thousand dollars to the institution; president of the first board of trustees. Professor in the first law faculty. He exemplified in his life the motto of Baylor University "Pro Ecclesia Pro Texana." (Right) CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN-JUDGE BAYLOR. Was a member of the Kentucky legislature, congressman from Kentucky, congressman from Alabama, United States Senator from Alabama. He served five years as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas. Twenty years as district judge for the state courts. As commander of a company in the War of 1812 and as a soldier in the Creek and Indian war, Mexican War and the Texas-Indian War. (Left) RELIGIOUS LEADER-JUDGE BAYLOR. Organized the Union Association. The first Baptist organization in Texas. Presented the first report in behalf of Christian education in Texas. He was the first president of the Texas Educational Society, sponsor of a free public school system. Preacher and lawyer. He preached the first sermon and held the first court in Waco giving direction and destiny to Texas by upholding the law and proclaiming the Gospel. (Back) Erected by the state of Texas 1936 with funds appropriated by the federal government to commemorate one hundred years of Texas Independence.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — steps away
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 0.7 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 0.8 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 1.1 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Governor Patrick Morris Neff — steps away
• Burleson Quadrangle — steps away
• Baylor University — steps away
• The Texas Collection — steps away