Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice

October of 2006 was a critical time for the reparations movement. Brown University’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, appointed by President Ruth Simmons, released a highly anticipated report on the University’s historical ties to slavery (and I hasten to add, anti-slavery). The report also makes clear suggestions about what to do in the aftermath.

As the report outlines in great detail, there have been several significant events in the reparations movement in recent decades. Perhaps the most significant is the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided monetary compensation to interned Japanese-Americans during World War II (and who survived until 1986). Other noteworthy examples include verbal and written apologies. For example, President Clinton’s 1993 apology for the deprivation of Hawaiian sovereignty in the 1890s; the 1995 apology from the Southern Baptist Convention for the sins of racism; JP MorganChase’s apology, inspired by the Chicago slavery era disclosure ordinance, which requires businesses doing business within the city to divulge their connections to slavery; and similarly, the California Slavery Era Insurance Registry Act (which requires insurance companies doing business in California to make public whatever records they have regarding policies written on slaves). The required disclosure documents are available on the California Insurance Commission’s website. This should make for some rather interesting reading if you happen to be a social historian.

With President Simmons' call for action, Brown University joined the club of institutions studying their historical connections to slavery. The report is as comprehensive and authoritative as you will find. The Committee was inspired, it appears to me, by two events. First, David Horowitz’ ad “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Is A Bad Idea--And Racist, Too,” which was published in the Brown Daily Herald in 2001 and stirred up much controversy on campus. Secondly, President Ruth Simmons' push to have a factual account of Brown’s connections to slavery.

The University's Committee did what academicians naturally do: question, investigate, discuss, and document. It is compellingly written, insightful, and informative. Take for example the first line of the report: "Let us begin with a clock." And so follows an engaging vignette about a historical artifact and its ties to the slave trade and to the University... Intriguing. What I especially liked about the report is the careful way in which it harmonizes historical evidence with discussion of contemporary moral and social justice issues. As an Art History major at Amherst, I know that it tends to be unpopular among historians to write for the present. However, I think such an approach is exactly appropriate in this context - what is relevant and what we as readers want to know about is the connections of the past to the present.

Most of the details of the history of Brown University and Rhode Island were entirely new to me. Specifically, the report emphasizes the many ways in which Rhode Island’s economy was tied to the products of an for slaves’ labor (negro cloth) and the convoluted roles that the Brown family (Nicholas, John, Joseph, and Moses) played in the slave trade and the abolition movement. One of the most haunting passages of the report is the discussion of the 1763-64 voyage of the slave trading ship Sally. The records of the disastrous voyage are shocking, to say the least.

Yet, after all of the research, discussion forums, speaker events, and publication of this report by Brown University, the question remains the same: what do we make of this now? Much of what the Steering Committee proposes is further education, k-12 public education to be exact. I do believe there is something beneficial in simply having a fuller, more complete history. That being said, I think it is critical in this case because it outlines the intricate ways in which great institutions of the past (and present) are connected to slavery. When we begin to look further, we see this same system seemingly everywhere. I am left wondering about other institutions - Amherst included - and their connections to slavery and genocide.

The most compelling element of this story is that it is a deeply American story: human beings whose names we will never know labored under horrific conditions and suffered mightly. The profits derived from that inhuman system then funded a university, which–even in the years before the Civil War–was apart of the movement for our liberation. Without a doubt, over a century of Brown University’s graduates have benefitted our country in incalculable ways. Consequentially, the products of an ruthless system have been transformed into a positive use. This may well be a central story for all Americans: suffering, killing, and injustice for the "improvement" of our country. Perhaps we should take a step back from the immediate profits and (in line with Brown's recommendations) invest in the failing system that is public education in this country.

You can read the full report by the Brown Steering Committee here.

A well-written New York Time's article on the report can be found here.