Happy Friday!
Earlier this week, Harvard University released a report titled ‘Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery,’ which details how the oldest university in the United States benefited from slavery.
Several people have asked me for my thoughts on the matter — and while they are not fully formed yet, I give my initial reaction in today’s Hot Takes section.
A few things that stood out to me in the report:
Between the University’s founding in 1636 to 1783, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court abolished slavery in the state — Harvard Presidents and staff enslaved more than 70 individuals — several of whom were forced to work on its campus.
During the five decades between 1890 and 1940, approximately 160 Blacks attended Harvard College, or an average of about 3 per year, 30 per decade.
During the first half of the 19th century, more than a third of the money donated or promised to Harvard by private individuals came from just five men who made their fortunes from slavery and slave-produced commodities.
Harvard and foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation were at the center of the eugenics movement. (I have an upcoming Q&A with Dr. Maribel Morey on this topic)
W.E.B. Du Bois arrived at Harvard with an undergraduate degree from Fisk University. Unwilling to accept his Fisk credential, Harvard required Du Bois to complete a second bachelor’s degree.
The report also offered seven recommendations, which I spent some time dissecting in the Hot Takes section.
Some reparations-related news for you:
The Decolonizing Wealth Project has launched its second round of funding through its Liberated Capital Fund for its #Case4Reparations initiative. If you are an organization working on reparations advocacy, apply by May 24th!
Keisha Blain details the story of Joetha Collier, a young Black woman killed near where Emmett Till was murdered for The Atlantic.
A new report found that the Minneapolis Police Department used “covert social media to surveil Black individuals and Black organizations, unrelated to criminal activity” and frequent use of “racist, misogynistic, and disrespectful language. Remember, our President wants to fund the police, not defund them.
With radical love,
Trevor
National News
New York Times: Harvard Details Its Ties to Slavery and Its Plans for Redress
Washington Post: Harvard’s history with slavery reveals an ugly truth about America
USA Today: Slavery descendant reacts to Harvard report
NPR: Harvard releases report detailing its ties to slavery, plans to issue reparations
MSNBC: Harvard's promise to address slavery's evil is more than just talk
Reparations Roundup: Reparations Roundup #8 Taifa discusses Harvard $100million reparations pledge & the missing element.
The Atlantic: THEY CALLED HER ‘BLACK JET’
ABC News: Indigenous climate efforts vital to fight against environmental destruction
Bloomberg: To Narrow the Racial Wealth Gap, Help Entrepreneurs of Color Own Property
Washington Post: The L.A. uprisings sparked an evangelical racial reckoning
Washington Post: How Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wages his culture wars
NBC: Why a bookstore owner is working to make Harriet Tubman Day a reality
The Atlantic: Who Student-Loan Forgiveness Really Helps
Regional News
Washington Post: Report: Minneapolis police engaged in ‘discriminatory, race-based policing’
Evanston Roundtable: Evanston honors reparations recipients – ‘a long overdue redress’ of past wrongs
Evanston Roundtable: Evanston leaders discuss reparations with Northfield temple
WGBH: Hundreds honor life of Bill Owens, leader of reparations movement, at UMass Boston memorial
Boston Business Journal: Boston Fed addresses wealth disparities in new research project
NHPR: How one regional non-profit is pushing to make racial equity in food systems a habit
Washington Post: Racist jokes cemented police culture that ignited L.A. uprising
Variety: Stagecoach Festival Bans Confederate Flag Displays
Smithsonian Magazine: The Trailblazing Black Entrepreneurs Who Shaped a 19th-Century California Boomtown
International News
NBC: $350 billion of Russian foreign reserves could par Ukrainian rations
Atlanta Black Star: ‘Out of Touch and Tone-Deaf’: Prince Edward Faces Backlash for His Apparent ‘Disinterested’ and Awkward Response to Reparations Discussions During Caribbean Tour
Financial Times: Battle for Namibia reparations: German deal ‘was never about us’
Sky News: Guyana's president calls for 'meaningful' apology over slavery after meeting Boris Johnson
Hot Takes
“While a university’s participation in human bondage through direct ownership or buying and selling of people might be deemed the highest level of culpability, financial entanglements and intellectual leadership that lent universities’ prestige to theories of racial hierarchy have also resulted in lasting harm,” the beginning of the recommendation section of the Harvard report states.
Harvard acknowledges that “the responsibility for involvement with slavery is shared across the institution — by presidents, fellows of the Corporation, overseers, faculty, staff, donors, students, and namesakes memorialized all over campus.
In its efforts for redress, Harvard states that it must not only pursue the truth “but also reconciliation,” and doing so will require visible and continuing actions that will include “monetary and nonmonetary efforts.”
Harvard has committed $100 million to a fund that they’ve named the “Legacy of Slavery Fund,” which will allow scholars and students to further illuminate Harvard’s role in slavery, according to the New York Times.
They present seven recommendations:
Engage and support descendant communities by leveraging Harvard’s excellence in education
Honor enslaved people through memorialization, research, curricula, and knowledge dissemination
Develop enduring partnerships with Black colleges and universities
Identify, engage, and support direct descendants
Honor, engage and support Native communities
Establish an endowed legacy of slavery fund to support the university’s reparative efforts
Ensure institutional accountability
Perhaps at a later date, I will situate these recommendations into one of the many reparations frameworks that have been put forth by the likes of the United Nations, Dr. William Darity, or the organization I currently work for, Liberation Ventures. But, for now, I’ll offer my brief thoughts on two of the above recommendations.
The second recommendation in the report offers that in the pursuit of truth and reconciliation, the university should “recognize and honor the enslaved people whose labor facilitated the founding, growth, and evolution of Harvard through a permanent and imposing physical memorial, convening space, or both.”
It makes no mention of what, if anything, should be done to the numerous monuments and buildings named after former enslavers still situated across the campus.
In 2020, Harvard Business School renamed a building that honored Carter Glass, a pro-slavery politician who once said that Virginia’s expanded voting restrictions would “eliminate the darkey as a political factor.” They also created a committee charged with articulating principles to determine when the names of historical figures “should or should not continue to be associated with Harvard buildings, spaces, professorships, programs, or other named objects.
It’s been two years since this committee was created. I find it interesting that there was no mention of the renaming of buildings that commemorate racists in the recommendation section, particularly after the report spent so much time discussing reconciliation.
A key goal of reconciliation on a college campus should be to grapple with how race, place, and power are connected. Racial reconciliation, to me, is not possible in a space that still publicly commemorates white supremacy.
The report also recommends creating a “Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery Remembrance Program” to identify the direct descendants of enslaved individuals who labored on Harvard’s campus and those who were enslaved by Harvard leadership, faculty, or staff.” The goal of such a program would be to “engage with these descendants through dialogue, programming, information sharing, relationship building, and educational support.”
I realize these recommendations are intentionally vague — but “educational support” leaves too much to the imagination. Will Harvard provide full-ride scholarships to the descendants that they identify? Will Harvard provide financial support if descendants wish to pursue their education elsewhere?
It also reminded me of a book I recently read called Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being, which put forth that people’s economic decisions are based on both monetary incentives and their social identity. Identity economics reveals a likely conflict when a school’s identity conflicts with a student’s identity. W.E.B. Du Bois once said, “I was in Harvard, but not of it, and realized all the irony of my singing ‘Fair Harvard.” Unless Harvard takes steps to radically transform the school's culture and cultivate a social identity that descendants of formerly enslaved students can feel comfortable in, it will likely reproduce similar harm.
In my estimation, this is just one of many steps institutions like Harvard must take to bring this country closer to a comprehensive federal reparations effort.
To close his piece today, Washinton Post columnist Eugene Robinson notes that “the whole nation stole centuries of labor and wealth from African Americans. Any real recompense requires the nation as a whole to come to terms with this monstrous crime.”
I couldn’t agree more.