Harvard Puts $100 Million Towards ‘Legacy of Slavery Fund.’ What Does It Do?
Harvard University is one of the many institutions in the United States that has benefited from slavery and slave labor. Now they are trying to do something about it. The New York Times has reported that the university has pledged $100 million, in part to create an endowed “Legacy of Slavery Fund.” This fund will “allow scholars and students to bring Harvard’s connections to slavery into the light for generations to come.”
This is unprecedented for an educational institution, and according to reports, “rivals the $100 million pledged by leaders of the Jesuit conference of priests for racial reconciliation and to benefit descendants of enslaved people at Georgetown University.”
What does this mean? Well this money is planned on being used in several says:
- tracing the modern-day descendants of enslaved people at Harvard
- creating exchange programs between students and faculty members at Harvard and those at historically Black colleges and universities
- collaborating with tribal colleges
- working to improve schools in the American South and the West Indies where plantation owners and Boston Brahmins made their fortunes
All good things, but what about the money or kinds of financial reparations? Jordan Lloyd is mentioned in the Times article, a descendant Cuba Vassall, who was enslaved Penelope Royall Vassall, sister of Isaac Royall Jr., the slaveholding benefactor of Harvard Law School. The family crest of the Royalls was the symbol of the law school until 2016.
She feels some anger toward Harvard for not doing more earlier. “It feels like they’re hopping on a bandwagon,” she said, referring to the changes that have come following Black Lives Matter protests. She tends to favor financial reparations, especially from a place like Harvard, whose actions will be a “barometer” for others. Her father, Dennis Earl Lloyd, however, wants Harvard “to create educational opportunity for Black communities, not hand out money.”
“What are you going to do, put a Cadillac in everyone’s garage?” said Mr. Lloyd. Why not? The reality is that, according to the university’s own reports, they made the money on the backs of enslaved people in the American South and Caribbean islands. Why shouldn’t they also be putting money towards scholarships, tuition, and other financial aid for students from those background who want to go to Harvard?
“Well into the 19th century, the university and its donors benefited from extensive financial ties to slavery,” the report said. “These profitable financial relationships included, most notably, the beneficence of donors who accumulated their wealth through slave trading; from the labor of enslaved people on plantations in the Caribbean islands and in the American South; and from the Northern textile manufacturing industry, supplied with cotton grown by enslaved people held in bondage.”
In turn, the report said, the university profited from loans to Caribbean sugar planters, rum distillers and plantation suppliers, and from investments in cotton manufacturing.
(via NYT)
There is no reason why Harvard shouldn’t make sure it is supporting, financially, the descendants of enslaved people. $100 million is a drop in the bucket, and money is a great opportunity equalizer. Even if they want to be stingy about tuition, they should then allow decedents to at least be able to have access to Harvard campus, library, and classes for free. I am glad they are acknowledging and putting some money towards it, but descendants deserve a lot more than acknowledgement.
(via New York Times, image: iStock / Getty Images Plus)
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