The University of Alabama apologized Tuesday to the descendants of slaves who were owned by faculty members or who worked on campus in the years before the Civil War.
Two university presidents and some faculty members owned slaves during the years before the Civil War, Brophy found, and several of the oldest structures on campus contain bricks made by slaves. Join the conversation!
Critics say the University of Georgia mishandled the discovery of the remains of several dozen African Americans near its Baldwin Hall in late 2015 by inadequately engaging faculty and community leaders in researching and exhuming the remains. They want the university to issue some form of reparations to the descendants of those enslaved workers. They also say UGA is not doing enough to recruit black students from the Athens area. Join the conversation!
Slavery was interwoven with the landscape of southern Maryland, where more than half of the population was African- American on the eve of the Civil War. From the middle of the 18th century up until the Civil War, the land where St. Mary’s College sits was a plantation, cultivated with slave labor. The quarters, then, were most likely inhabited by enslaved people. Join the conversation!
South Carolina College, forerunner to the University of South Carolina, owned a number of slaves and hired countless others between 1801 and 1865. Enslaved people made significant contributions to the construction and maintenance of college buildings and to daily life on campus. Join the conversation!
A substantial amount of wealth derived from slavery in the Caribbean underpinned the foundation of King’s College London in 1829. Should King’s follow the example of the University of Glasgow, which in August 2019 announced it would commit 20 million pounds to reparations? What are the arguments for reparations? In what creative ways might King’s meet this challenge and acknowledge its debts to the Caribbean, Africa and the African diaspora? Join the conversation!
Hamilton’s position on slavery is more complex than his biographers’ suggest. Hamilton was not an advocate of slavery, but when the issue of slavery came into conflict with his personal ambitions, his belief in property rights, or his belief of what would promote America’s interests, Hamilton chose those goals over opposing slaveryHamilton’s involvement in the selling of slaves suggests that his position against slavery was not absolute.
Besides marrying into a slaveholding family, Hamilton conducted transactions for the purchase and transfer of slaves on behalf of his in-laws and as part of his assignment in the Continental Army. In 1777, before he married Elizabeth, he had written a formal letter to Colonel Elias Dayton, relaying Washington’s request that Dayton return a “Negro lately taken by a party of militia belonging to Mr. Caleb Wheeler. Join the conversation!
New revelations today for Johns Hopkins University and Medical Center. Its namesake, the businessman and abolitionist both institutions are named after, owned slaves.
Recently they found a document — strong evidence Hopkins, the founding donor of JHU and the hospital, owned slaves at his Baltimore home in 1840 and 1850, and his family had an extensive relationship to slaveholding. Join the conversation!
Visitors to the Rutgers University New Brunswick campus this spring will find historical markers at four new locations informing them about prominent university figures who made their fortunes through the slave economy.
Jacob Rusten Hardenbergh, Rutgers’ first president, owned abolitionist Sojourner Truth and her parents, Bomefree and Mau-Mau Bett, as slaves. Join the converstation!
Enslaved blacks came to William and Mary through several channels. Some were purchased outright to serve the president and professors, some were given to the College, and still others belonged to members of the faculty, administration and to students. Several worked on the main campus, while others lived and worked on Nottoway Quarter, the college-owned tobacco plantation.
Historian Craig Steven Wilder asserts that during the colonial period, “a small army of slaves maintained the College of William and Mary.” Join the conversation!
At an April 2013 meeting of the President’s Cabinet, Dr. Marcus Martin, Vice President and Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity, made a presentation on slavery at the University of Virgina and proposed that a commission be formed to further explore the topic and to make recommendations as to the next steps the University could take in response to this history of slavery. Join the conversation!