Harvard has unveiled a plaque on April 6 to honor four slaves who worked at the university in the 1700s, acknowledging the presence and role of slavery in its history.
President Drew Faust led the unveiling of the permanent plaque on Wadsworth House, the home of Colonial-era university presidents. He was joined by U.S. representative John Lewis from Georgia, a civil rights advocate and honorary degree holder who lauded the move as a way to help reclaim "what has lived too long in silence."
"We have been tossing and turning for centuries in a restless sleep," says Lewis, whose own great-grandfather was a slave, during the ceremony. "We are a people haunted by amnesia [because] we just can't summon the truth of what it is."
The plaque honors Titus and Venus, members of the household of Benjamin Wadsworth - president from 1725 to 1737 - and Juba and Bilbah, who served Edward Holyoke - holding the top Harvard post from 1737 to 1769. Other slaves likely worked on campus, yet the plaque particularly cited individuals whose names were known.
The unveiling occurred a week after Faust published an op-ed in the Harvard Crimson that dubbed the presence and help of people of African descent at the school "a largely untold story."
According to Faust, Harvard acted as "directly complicit" in racial bondage in the country since its earliest days in the 17th century until slavery ended in the state of Massachusetts in 1783. The college, too, is said to continue being an involved party in slavery through funding and other ties to the slave South until the time of emancipation.
Virginia-born Civil War historian Faust, who dubbed slavery a part of Harvard's "history and legacy," has established a committee of historians for advice on how the university can continue to recognize and remember its link to slavery. A conference on slavery is also in the pipeline.
Harvard Law School also recently committed to change its seal to take out the coat of arms of a slave owner, a move that followed student protests.
The ceremony was attended by a crowd of about 100, including authors of "Harvard and Slavery," a booklet project that aims to stir "a broader debate" on what the school's history of slavery means to the community at present.
