Race, Slavery, and America’s Universities

A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed its complex and contested involvement in slavery, setting off a nationwide controversy. But Brown’s troubling past was far from unique. Many of America’s revered colleges and universities—from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC—had been dependent on slavery and were breeding grounds for the racist ideas. Craig Steven Wilder reveals the history of oppression behind the institutions often considered the cradle of liberal politics and his new book Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities.