As always, we invite you to share this post with students, colleagues, and anyone else who is interested in the legacies of slavery. A link here does not imply agreement or endorsement by the Council of Independent Colleges.
- Ana Lucia Araujo, “Legacies of Slavery Across the Americas Still Shape Our Politics,” Time (November 4, 2024): LINK. “As anti-Black racism remains one of the most enduring legacies of slavery in the Americas, understanding the scope of slavery in other parts of the American continent beyond the United States helps us to more honestly face this painful history of human violence as not a U.S. anomaly but rather as part of a long shared human history of Europe, Africa, and the Americas.”
- Vanessa Armstrong, “When White Supremacists Staged the Only Successful Coup in U.S. History,” Smithsonian Magazine (November 8, 2024): LINK. “The scars from the events of November 10 [1898] still run deep in Wilmington [North Carolina]. Some descendants of those involved in the massacre, both as perpetrators and victims, regularly take part in Coming to the Table discussions, where they work together toward racial healing. Several appear in the ‘American Coup’ documentary [now being aired on PBS].”
- Isaac Willour, “The Abolitionist Titan You’ve Never Heard Of,” Law & Liberty (November 8, 2024): LINK. This review of Caleb Franz’s new book, The Conductor (Post Hill Press), argues that “In an age where disturbingly many believe, as John Brown did, that our most bitter divisions can only be healed through the shedding of American blood, we once again stand in need of figures like [abolitionist] John Rankin.”
- Rebekah Sager, “These former slave plantations are evolving, bringing new light to a dark chapter and reparation,” Reckon (November 5, 2024): LINK. Former plantations from Virginia to Louisiana are seeking out the descendants of the people enslaved on their land, offering financial aid to descendants, and promoting efforts to highlight Black voices in the history of other plantations.
- Jordan Marie-Smith et al., “The Morgan Library’s quest to honor a matriarch in archiving,” NPR (November 8, 2024): LINK. A new exhibit commemorates Belle da Costa Greene (1879-1950), a white-passing Black woman and “one of the most fascinating librarians in American history”; for many years she served as director of the J.P. Morgan Library in New York.
Updates from the CIC Network
- Allison Schneider, “Fordham Professors Research University’s Ties to Slavery,” The Fordham Ram (November 6, 2024): LINK. At CIC member Fordham University (Bronx, New York), two faculty members are working to uncover the long-buried ties between this Jesuit institution and slavery in the United States—including Fordham’s popularity among “the wealthiest Catholic slave-holding families in the nation[, many of whom] sent their sons to Fordham.”
- “St. John’s College Releases Report on College History and Slavery,” St. John’s College (November 1, 2024): LINK. CIC member St. John’s College (Annapolis, Maryland), the third-oldest college in the nation, has released a new report on the institution’s historical ties to slavery. The report focuses on the campus buildings named for enslavers, including alumnus (and national anthem writer) Francis Scott Key.