To Atone For Slavery Ties, Brown University Commits $10 Million to Local Public Schools
02/27/07 -- Shilpa Banerji Brown University
has announced a series of new commitments to atone for the institution’s ties to
slavery, including continuing academic partnerships with several historically
Black
colleges and universities that were affected by Hurricane Katrina. The new
programs follow
a report of the school’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, released
last October,
that found much of Brown’s endowment came from slave owners’ wealth.
A university spokesman says Brown will also continue to expand its exchange
program
with Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., a program that has existed since the
mid-1960s.
The academic partnerships with other HBCUs will include two-way exchange
programs of
students, faculty and other resources, the spokesman adds.
But the most significant commitment is to public schools in Providence, which
includes a
$10 million endowment to create The Fund for the Education of the Children of
Providence. That endowment, which the university will begin raising immediately,
will be
invested within the university’s own endowment. The university will also appoint
10 new
Urban Education Fellows — graduate students who agree to serve at least three
years in
Providence-area schools after earning either a Master of Arts in teaching or a
Master of
Arts in urban education policy at Brown.
President Ruth J. Simmons says one of the clearest messages in the Slavery and
Justice
report is that institutions of higher education must take a greater interest in
the health of
their local communities.
“Lack of access to a good education, particularly for urban schoolchildren, is
one of the
most pervasive and pernicious social problems of our time. Colleges and
universities are
uniquely able to improve the quality of urban schools. Brown is committed to
undertaking
that work,” Simmons says.
Simmons also indicated other provisions in the university’s response, such as
asking city
and state officials to join it in forming a commission to determine how the
history of the
slave trade in Rhode Island might best be acknowledged in a memorial.
Brown will also appoint a committee to explore how best to carry out a major
research and
teaching initiative on issues of slavery and justice, building on resources in
its academic
departments and centers. It will also appoint a team of outside experts to
recommend how
it might strengthen its Department of Africana Studies.
The Slavery and Justice report mentions Henry Laurens, a planter and political
leader, who
ran the largest slave-trading house in North America in the 1750s. His firm,
Austin and
Laurens, handled the sales of more than 8,000 Africans. Laurens donated £50 to
the
College of Rhode Island, the original name of the university.
Brown’s founder, the Rev. James Manning, freed his only slave but accepted
donations
from slave owners and traders, including the Brown family of Providence. One
family
member, Nicholas Brown Jr., is the university’s namesake.
For more information on the report and the university’s response, visit
www.brown.edu/slaveryjustice .
