The Presidential Committee on the Legacy of Slavery - The Legacy of Slavery at Harvard

THE LEGACYSLAVERYHARVARD

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OF THE
PRESIDENTIAL COMMITTEE

Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England2022

Copyright 2022 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Jacket design: Lisa Roberts

Jacket art: View of the Ancient Buildings Belonging to Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. (1777 - 1890), Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, New York Public Library. Background: Getty Images.

9780674292468 (EPUB)

9780674292475 (PDF)

This publication was funded in part by the Presidential Initiative on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery.

Any proceeds will benefit the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts.

Frontispiece: A Prospect of the Colledges in Cambridge in New England, Engraving attributed to John Harris after William Burgis, 1726. Massachusetts Historical Society.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress

ISBN: 978-0-674-29240-6 (alk. paper)

Dedicated in memory of Paul Farmer (19592022), our beloved colleague and committee member

For the fortunate institution of higher education, there are signal moments when teaching, research, and service converge, creating a powerful current that speeds change and progress. The Report of the Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery catalogs truths long obscured: that enslaved people worked on our campus; that the labor of enslaved people enriched donors and, ultimately, the institution; that members of our faculty promoted ideas that gave scholarly legitimacy to concepts of racial superiority; and that the University continued discriminatory practices long after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in 1865. The report also recommends, with clarity and conviction, how Harvard ought to marshal its intellectual, reputational, and financial resources to address the persistent corrosive effects of slavery and its legacy.

When the report was released in April 2022, I could not have anticipated the number of positive and heartfelt responses I would receive as president, not just from members of the University community but also from individuals across the country. Honesty and humanity, as well as a deeper understanding of Harvard, were welcome even as they ushered in feelings of disappointment and indignation. Our willingness to understand how we as a community might redressthrough teaching, research, and serviceour legacies with slavery was hailed as a turning point for the University. Our commitment of $100 million and our establishment of a committee devoted to implementation signaled the ongoing need for careful attention, focused leadership, and dedicated resources in the years to come.

Beginning to fulfill our moral responsibility is an act of service not only to our community but also to our society. It is a sad commentary on the state of our Union that efforts to expand knowledge of Harvards past were undertaken in parallel with drives in thirty-six states to suppress teaching about race and slavery. Education in this area of American history is essential to understanding our democracyand to confronting and addressing persistent inequity. Negative responses to the release of the report, though rare, were sobering reminders of the ignorance and racism that are still part of our national life. None of us can afford to be complacent if we hope to address injustices that limit us all.

The University owes a debt of gratitude to Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin for leading our effort and for giving us the opportunity to confront the truth and its consequencesand to take action. Hers was a selfless act of belief in the power of institutions to make a difference in the lives of individuals, and she and the members of the committee devoted themselves to their task with unflagging energy, even in the midst of a pandemic. Yet they would be the first to say that they could not have done it alone. Though the pages that follow are the result of the committees two and a half years of extraordinary effort, many years of tireless work across and beyond the University preceded them, and this volume would not exist without the insistence and patience of countless members of our community. We are indebted, as well and as always, to Ruth Simmons, who, in 2004, launched a landmark effort as president of Brown University to, in her words, investigate and discuss an uncomfortable piece of the Universitysand our nationshistory.

I am honored to share this volume on behalf of our community, and especially those members whose contributions were unknown for so long, so that it may persist to the resounding benefit of generations to come.

Lawrence S. Bacow
President, Harvard University
June 2022

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, chair

Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Daniel P. S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School; professor of history, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Sven Beckert

Laird Bell Professor of History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Paul Farmer (19592022)

Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; cofounder, Partners In Health

Annette Gordon-Reed

Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard Law School; professor of history, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Stephen Gray

Associate professor of urban design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Evelynn M. Hammonds

Chair of the Department of the History of Science, Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science, and professor of African and African American studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Nancy F. Koehn

James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Meira Levinson

Professor of education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Tiya Miles

Michael Garvey Professor of History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Radcliffe Alumnae Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Martha Minow

300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard Law School

Maya Sen

Professor of public policy, Harvard Kennedy School

Daniel Albert Smith

Lecturer on ministry studies, Harvard Divinity School

David R. Williams

Chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; professor of African and African American studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

William Julius Wilson

Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor Emeritus, Harvard Kennedy School and Faculty of Arts and Sciences