Harvard University Reckons With its Historic Ties to Slavery

Last week, Harvard become the most recent and one of the most prominent universities to reckon with its own complicity in slavery, acknowledging that university presidents, faculty, and staff enslaved more than 70 people in the years from 1636 to 1783, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that slavery was unlawful, according to TIME.
“Enslaved men and women served Harvard presidents and professors and fed and cared for Harvard students,” stated the Harvard report, released on April 26. “Moreover, throughout this period and well into the 19th century, the University and its donors benefited from extensive financial ties to slavery.”
“I believe we bear a moral responsibility to do what we can to address the persistent corrosive effects of those historical practices on individuals, on Harvard, and on our society,” Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said in a letter to the school community.
What Actually Changes After a University Like Harvard Investigates Its Ties to Slavery (TIME)

Harvard Magazine writes that the hard part has barely begun. The most urgent of those questions relate to repair and atonement, and to what the University must do now, after the years-long effort to bring this fuller history to light. The answers were not easy, nor were they merely theoretical.
After Slavery Report, What Next? (Harvard Magazine)

The Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery report represents a landmark acknowledgment from one of the world’s most prestigious universities of the breadth of its entanglement with slavery, white supremacy and racial injustice for centuries after its 1636 founding, reports The Washington Post.
Harvard leaders and staff enslaved 79 people, university finds (The Washington Post)

Note: All images are taken from the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery report, available online here: https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu.
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