| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Active | 1917 (1917)–1922 (1922) |
Religious affiliation | Baptist |
| Location | ,, United States 33°47′29″N84°20′56″W / 33.791415°N 84.349023°W /33.791415; -84.349023 |
 | |
Lanier University was a short-livedprivateuniversity, located in today'sMorningside-Lenox Park neighborhood ofAtlanta, Georgia, in the United States.[1] It was notable for its connections with the secondKu Klux Klan, which was also based in Atlanta and which owned the university for a time.
Charles Lewis Fowler, a Baptist minister, founded Lanier in 1917. He hoped for financing fromCoca-Cola magnateAsa Candler but instead got backing from the Georgia Baptist Association. Lanier was to be Georgia's first co-ed Baptist college.[2] The university was named in honor ofSidney Lanier, the "poet of the Confederacy."
ArchitectA. Ten Eyck Brown made architectural plans for the new campus in Morningside on a crescent-shaped strip of land (see illustration). At the head of this strip, at University Drive and Spring Valley Lane, would stand a replica of theCustis-Lee Mansion inArlington, Virginia. This was built and named Arlington Hall.[2] The University Park subdivision was developed around the university in 1921, and University Drive is also a reminder of that time.
Among its faculty wasWilliam Joseph Simmons, founder and leader of the secondKu Klux Klan. Simmons was a "professor of southern history" at Lanier.[3]
Financial problems plagued the school; in 1921, the school was sold to theKu Klux Klan, which owned it for a year, withNathan Bedford Forrest II (grandson of theConfederate general by the same name) as secretary and business manager. "The central idea involved in this proposition of the operation of Lanier University by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is to do what few universities are doing in this country, and that is to teach pure Americanism," Forrest toldThe New York Times. "Most of our large universities now are turning out socialists, cynics, and atheists."[4]
Forrest predicted the Klan-run Lanier would enroll 1,000 to 2,000 students within a year.[4] Instead, it failed in less time than that, closing on September 1, 1922.[5] It was sold that October.
In 1949 Congregation Shearith Israel, then inSummerhill, bought the property from the estate of Walter E. King and used it as asynagogue.[2] During this time Summerhill was deteriorating due to the construction of theDowntown Connector freeway, and many Jews were moving from there to Morningside, where many would later join tofight the construction of the I-485 freeway through Morningside.
Since 2009, Arlington Hall has been occupied by the Canterbury School, while the synagogue remains in buildings behind it to the east.
