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Harvard Pledged $100 Million to Atone For its Ties to Slavery
A lesson in what money can’t buy
Harvard University President Lawrence S. Bacow along with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Chair of the Presidential Initiative on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, recently announced Harvard has ignored the painful truth their university was shaped by slavery.
According to Harvard’s President, slavery was fundamental to New England’s economy during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Slavery was legal in Massachusetts, where Harvard is based, until 1783. By that time, Harvard was around 150 years old. Harvard’s leaders, faculty, and staff enslaved more than 70 people of African and Native American descent. The labor of enslaved people also enriched donors to the university. Those riches helped Harvard expand its infrastructure, grow its faculty and student body, and build its reputation. Prominent Harvard leaders and professors also defended slavery, justified segregation, and promoted racial hierarchy and discrimination.
Harvard’s President insisted that acknowledging this truth is not enough. Harvard has a moral obligation to take action because “slavery’s legacies persist in racial disparities in education, health, employment, income, wealth and the criminal justice system. The question before us now is how best to reckon with these realities…