blackprof.com: Brown University and the Future of the Reparations Movement

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Brown University I'm honored to have the opportunity to visit at blackprof for the month and particularly happy to be guesting with Mitch Crusto, whose work on the legal history I admire greatly. I'm hoping to talk a little about legal history and race, too--some about W.E.B. DuBois, some about Ralph Ellison, some about Harriet Beecher Stowe, and maybe a little about law schools, too.

I thought that I'd start with a little about a topic that's been in the news the last few weeks: the report of Brown University's Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. R.A. Lenhart's already written about it here. I was particularly interested in Lenhardt's thoughts because she's a trustee of Brown--and thus is in a particularly important vantage on what's happening there.

It's an understatement to say that the reparations movement has a long way to go. Nevertheless, there have been some important successes. Most prominent is the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided compensation to Japanese Americans interned during World War II (and who survived until 1986). Then there's the 1995 apology from the Southern Baptist Convention for the sins of racism. One often-overlooked success is the California Slavery Era Insurance Registry Act (which requires insurance companies doing business in California to disclose whatever records they have regarding policies written on slaves). The disclosures required are available on the California Insurance Commission’s website. Check out the data that the California Insurance Commissions has posted, which includes the names of slaves and slaveholders. Amazing bits of social history, I think.

Brown's gone the farthest of any university, by far. In fact, I think the Brown report is the best book I've ever read on reparations.

Other schools have looked at their connections to slavery in some ways already. In 2001 Yale graduate students issued a report on Yale's connections to slavery. Yale University Historian David Brion Davis, one of our nation’s most distinguished historians and a huge figure in slavery studies, has been somewhat critical of the report. (You may be interested in Davis' new book Inhuman Bondage.)

Brown did what academics do: study, reseach, talk, and write. The Steering Committee spent more than two years taking evidence about the University’s connections to slavery and the place of slavery in Rhode Island more generally. They brought a diverse set of scholars to campus. A distinguished group of Brown faculty and students researched and wrote a lengthy report. It’s a beautifully written report, which I think is a model of historical writing. Check out the first line of Brown's report: "Let us begin with a clock." And then follows an engaging vignette about a clock and its connections to the slave trade and to Brown.... What I particularly like about the report is the way it integrates historical evidence with discussion of contemporary moral issues. It is unpopular among historians to write for the present. I, however, think such an approach is exactly appropriate in these kinds of cases, where we want to know about the connections of the past to the present. Perhaps one of the many results of the report will be a shift in historical writing, which encourages more explicit connections of findings about the past to the present. Along those lines, you might enjoy Linda Gordon’sGreat Arizona Orphan Abduction and maybe even Reconstructing the Dreamland.

Close observers of Brown and Rhode Island history knew the key details. But much of this is new, particularly the emphasis on the multiple ways that Rhode Island’s economy was connected to the products of slaves’ labor and the complex positions that the Brown family played in the slave trade, as well as the abolition movement. One of the most haunting parts of the report is the discussion of the 1763-64 voyage of the slave trading ship Sally. The records of the disastrous voyage are chilling, to say the least.

Then there’s the question of what we make of this now? Much of what they propose is further education; that’s always a good bet. I think there’s some good from having a fuller, more complete history. However, I think it’s important here because it details the ways in which great institutions of the past are connected to slavery–and how when we begin to look, we see that system seemingly everywhere.

For me , however, the most moving part of the story is that it is a deeply American story: people whose names we will never know labored under harsh conditions and suffered mightly. The money made off of that inhuman system was used to fund a university, which–even in the years before the Civil War–was part of the movement for our liberation. An important part of the story is that Brown's President Francis Wayland was an anti-slavery advocate in the 1840s. And in recent years, Brown University’s students have benefitted our country in incalculable ways. Thus, the products of an inhumane system have been turned to a positive use. I think that is a central story for us Americans: people make sacrifices for the improvement of our country. They will never reap the benefits, but the dream of a better and more humane country lives on. Through the sacrifices of nameless people, we are moving steadily towards that dream.

Close readers of the legal blogosphere may realize that I've lifted much of this post from a post over at ratiojuris. (That post has a little more detail). So I'll leave with two new thoughts here. First, the report's focus is on issues of general racial justice and historical knowledge. I think that's the direction the reparations movement is going: towards general issues of racial justice, rather than payments to individuals; and towards local studies and local action, rather than nation-wide action. Now I'm going to make a prediction: other schools will follow Brown's lead. In my next post I'll discuss a few schools that I think will be next to look into their past.

Comments

"What I particularly like about the report is the way it integrates historical evidence with discussion of contemporary moral issues. It is unpopular among historians to write for the present. I, however, think such an approach is exactly appropriate in these kinds of cases, where we want to know about the connections of the past to the present."

The problem with this is that historical writing is objectively factual even when pertinent history is omitted, while attempts to connect the past to the present can be subjective, interpretive and opinionated.

Posted by: elb1999 | November 1, 2006 01:15 PM

Elb said: "The problem with this is that historical writing is objectively factual even when pertinent history is omitted, while attempts to connect the past to the present can be subjective, interpretive and opinionated."

Elb, historically writing is not always objectively factual. Second, when pertinent history is omitted, it's debatable to whether that writing is "objectively factual".

Posted by: Debbie | November 1, 2006 01:34 PM

http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/2001/april_2001_2.html

Brown's definitely "gone the farthest of any university." They're such fans of the reparations movement that they'll barely stop short of lynching people who disagree with it.

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Posted by: xanax | November 2, 2006 06:40 AM

"Thus, the products of an inhumane system have been turned to a positive use. I think that is a central story for us Americans: people make sacrifices for the improvement of our country. They will never reap the benefits, but the dream of a better and more humane country lives on. Through the sacrifices of nameless people, we are moving steadily towards that dream."

A dream for some has been an absolute nightmare for others. Sacrifices! What do you mean sir? Afrikan people were stolen and then robbed. Calling this a sacrifice is tantamount to saying robbery victims willingly give their possessions to armed criminals. This entire country is constructed on a foundation of holocaustic theft. The theft of the land of indigenous peoples and the holocaust they suffered. The theft of Afrikan labor and the holocaust Afrikans suffered in America. Sacrifices! What you call sacrifices were in fact crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity for which America remains unrepentant. No matter how great Americans think this country has become, that's its foundation.

You are calling these crimes sacrifices while dreaming of a more humane country. That's oxymoronic! America is on a collision course with barbarism. Having failed to recognize, acknowledge, and repent for its original sins, America contiunes to pillage, plunder, and murder those like the people of Iraq whom it also views as less than human. Sacrifices! Before you proceed with another imbecillic incantation why not consider propitiating yourself to the gods of pillage, plunder, and murder!

Posted by: Makheru | November 3, 2006 10:25 AM

Good teaching, please keep it coming.

Posted by: Anonymous | November 3, 2006 12:50 PM

Debbie,

By acknowledging that sometimes some historical facts can be ommitted, I was saying that sometimes the story is not complete. That is however different from subjectiveness that goes into linking the present to the past. You see it all the time with theses specific problems in our community are a result of these occurences in the past. It could be right or wrong but it is still subjective as in our argument about what drove the high out of wedlock birth rates we see today.

Posted by: elb1999 | November 3, 2006 02:59 PM

Elb you stated this: "The problem with this is that historical writing is objectively factual even when pertinent history is omitted, while attempts to connect the past to the present can be subjective, interpretive and opinionated."

Debbie: If you are omitting facts, then history is no more objective.

Elb stated: "By acknowledging that sometimes some historical facts can be ommitted, I was saying that sometimes the story is not complete. That is however different from subjectiveness that goes into linking the present to the past."

Debbie: Elb, all you have to do is think before you write something.
I can make this statement:

"In 1938, whites were professionals and law-abiding citizens; blacks were poor and criminals." This statement is "factually" correct, yet it is not objective. The same can be (and is) said about history. Thus, if you omit pertinent facts, history is no more objective, rather it history is subjective too.

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