Legacies of American Slavery: Reckoning with the Past is an initiative of the Council of Independent Colleges, administered in cooperation with the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at the MacMillan Center (Yale University). It is supported by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation and supplemental funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Legacies of American Slavery is a multi-year project, providing a variety of opportunities for CIC member institutions, their faculty members and students, and community-based partners to participate in research, teaching and learning, and public discussions about the multiple legacies of American slavery. In 2021, CIC selected seven institutions to serve as Regional Collaboration Partners—that is, the coordinating hubs for a national network of other colleges, universities, and community partners. The Regional Collaboration Partners play an essential role in shaping and administering the national network, using funds provided by CIC. CIC also named a dozen colleges and universities as Institutional Affiliates. These institutions play a key role in developing the national network.