Websites on Racism in Higher Education

Brown University

Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice

Brown University President Ruth Simmons appointed a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The committee, which included faculty members, undergraduate and graduate students, and administrators, was charged to investigate and to prepare a report about the University’s historical relationship to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. It was also asked to organize public programs that might help the campus and the nation reflect on the meaning of this history in the present and on the complex historical, political, legal, and moral questions posed by any present-day confrontation with past injustice. The Committee presented its final report to President Simmons in October 2006. On February 24, 2007, the Brown Corporation endorsed a set of initiatives in response to the Committee’s report.

Brown University

Blacks at Brown

Brown University President Ruth Simmons appointed a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The committee, which included faculty members, undergraduate and graduate students, and administrators, was charged to investigate and to prepare a report about the University’s historical relationship to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. It was also asked to organize public programs that might help the campus and the nation reflect on the meaning of this history in the present and on the complex historical, political, legal, and moral questions posed by any present-day confrontation with past injustice. The Committee presented its final report to President Simmons in October 2006. On February 24, 2007, the Brown Corporation endorsed a set of initiatives in response to the Committee’s report.

Bryn Mawr College

Black at Bryn Mawr: Past as Legacy and Project: Re-Remembering Black Experiences at Bryn Mawr College

Undergraduates Emily Koko and Grace Pussey’s research on Black students at Bryn Mawr College brought them to the papers of the college’s former president Marion Park, who served from 1922–1942. Her 1926 letter set the policies for admission of Black students, which allowed them to attend, but not to live on campus. Her ideas were supported by a past president, among others. The archives yielded examples of “appeasement” of Black students who could earn a degree, but not “progress.”

Columbia University

Columbia University & Slavery project

The Columbia University and Slavery project explores a previously little-known aspect of the university’s history—its connections with slavery and with antislavery movements from the founding of King’s College to the end of the Civil War. Professor Eric Foner led a research course in the spring of 2015 on the role of slavery in Columbia’s early history. The Columbia University & Slavery project was initiated to draw on further research to be conducted by faculty and students.

Georgetown University

Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation

In the fall of 2015, the University convened the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation to help explore this history, to engage the community in dialogue, and to outline a set of recommendations to guide future efforts. Through new research, digital archives, events, dialogues, and outreach, the University is bringing the research about this history to life and making it accessible.

Harvard Law School

Harvard to retire Law School shield

Harvard Corporation has approved the recommendation of the Harvard Law School Shield Committee to retire the HLS shield, which is modeled on the family crest of an 18th century slaveholder.

Harvard Universty

Bound by History: Harvard, Slavery, and Archives

Drawn from the collections of the Harvard University Archives, the items on display in this exhibition represent the beginning of work underway to identify the links between Harvard and the system of racial bondage that defined American society.

Indiana University

Banneker History Project: Historic Investigation of a Once Segregated School

The Banneker History Project was a service learning project during which students investigated the history of the Benjamin Banneker School, a segregated school that operated from 1915–1951 in a Midwestern college community. This article discusses the research these students conducted and the perceptions they adopted as a result of their work.

Oregon State University

Building and Place Name Advisory Committee

A team of scholars, consisting of both OSU faculty and an external scholar, assessed available primary and secondary sources regarding the lives and legacies of Benjamin Arnold, Joseph Avery, Thomas Hart Benton, and A.T. "Slats" Gill. The team produced individual historical reports on each of these people, and the buildings that carried their names. The committee concluded that these individuals were unworthy of public commemoration due to their Confederate sympathies, anti-Native American stances, and discrimination against blacks in OSU athletics. This process of historical inquiry—coupled with input from the community—informed the Building and Place Name Evaluation Workgroup and Architectural Naming Committee, which then gave its recommendations to the President. It includes guides to the archival resources used by the researchers.

Princeton University

The Princeton & Slavery Project

The Princeton & Slavery Project investigates the University’s involvement with the institution of slavery. It explores the slave-holding practices of Princeton’s early trustees and faculty members, considers the impact of donations derived from the profits of slave labor, and looks at the broader culture of slavery in the state of New Jersey, which did not fully abolish slavery until 1865. It also documents the Southern origins of many Princeton students during the antebellum period and considers how the presence of these Southern students shaped campus conversations about politics and race. The site also offers stories of enslaved people who worked at Princeton, and includes articles written about how Princeton chose to address its history.

Rutgers University

Scarlet and Black Project

The Scarlet and Black project was formed in 2015 to examine the role that two disenfranchised groups—enslaved and indigenous people—played in the founding and development of Rutgers University. The Committee on Enslaved and Disenfranchised Populations in Rutgers History was also charged with making recommendations about how the university can best acknowledge its influences on our history. As the project continues with subsequent volumes, Committee members will expand and develop their research to map out the history as it relates to slavery and issues of race, moving us up to the present day of Rutgers University. The essay links Rutgers' history to that of the Ivy League colleges of its period and the treatment of enslaved people and economies.

Smith College

The History of the Black Student Alliance at Smith College

The exhibit traces the legacy of the Black Student Alliance from the admission of the first African American students in the 1890s, to the founding of the BSA in 1968, and through the 1980s and 1990s. Sections deal with confronting racism, the creation of a cultural center, and building alliances. Of particular note is the story of Carrie Lee, who was admitted in the fall of 1913. She was denied her room assignment when her white roommate refused to live with her. Lee’s father and the NAACP protested the refusal of the college to find her housing, other than by working as a servant off campus. In October, the Board of Trustees took up the question of Carrie Lee’s housing and “declined to vote to exclude colored students from housing.”

University of Michigan

Mapping Slavery in Detroit

Mapping Slavery in Detroit is a University of Michigan Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program project to develop and explore the history of slavery in Detroit and its effect on the modern-day city. The primary goal of this project is to provide a more complete picture of slavery in the Detroit area for the general public, students, and scholars in order to acknowledge the full history of the area and to learn from it. The website includes a map to show sites of slavery on a contemporary map of Detroit and census figures.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

President’s Advisory Committee on University History

In 2016, the President’s Advisory Committee on University History made recommendations regarding how the University should approach questions raised by the community regarding historical names in and on buildings on the University of Michigan campus. The committee explored the history of naming practices at Ann Arbor and issued preliminary recommendations to President Mark Schlissel in the fall of 2016, which he shared and discussed with the executive leadership of the institution. In 2018, it was decided that several buildings would be renamed after it was established that their namesakes held racist and white-supremacist views.

University of North Carolina

Names in Brick and Stone: Histories from UNC’s Built Landscape

This project is one chapter in an ongoing campus conversation about equity and the history of the University of North Carolina that extended back at least into the 1960s. The project focuses on the legacies of white supremacy embodied in the former Saunders Hall (renamed “Carolina Hall” by UNC Trustees in 2015) and in UNC’s Confederate monument, dubbed “Silent Sam.” To explore the histories of UNC’s buildings and their namesakes, the project, a UNC course, employs a combination of researched long-form essays and a flexible visualization that assembles basic data about the over 250 structures that UNC’s Facilities Services Department classifies as “major buildings.”

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Slavery and the Making of the University

“Slavery and the Making of the University” is an online exhibition of documents assembled by the University Archives’ staff on a UNC digitization project. The documents included recognize the contributions of slaves, college servants, and free persons of color to building the institution. They also discovered historic acts of these men and women who often saved students from danger. Documents also revealed the sale of enslaved men and women with profits to the University and fees to attorneys.

University of South Carolina

Slavery at South Carolina College, 1801–1865: The Foundations of the University of South Carolina

This website, created by graduate students in a history seminar, tells the story of the crucial role played by enslaved people in building the college from 1801 to their liberation by federal troops in 1865. These buildings were made of bricks produced by enslaved workers and by slave labor. Whether owned by the college, its faculty members, or hired from private parties, they maintained every aspect of college life for students, faculty, and the president.

University of Virginia

President’s Commission on Slavery and the University

The Commission’s charge is to offer advice and recommendations to the president on the commemoration of the University of Virginia’s historical relationship with slavery and enslaved people; to investigate the interpretation of historically significant buildings/sites related to slavery at the university; to discuss mutual interests with Monticello to include research and events focusing on Jefferson and slavery; to promote an historical exhibition focusing on slavery at the university; to propose projects that would educate students, faculty, staff, and visitors about enslaved individuals who worked on the grounds; and to consider appropriate memorialization.

University of Virginia

Universities, Slavery, Public Memory, and the Built Landscape

This symposium included the participation of universities, scholars, community members, descendants, historic sites, preservationists, and public historians who engaged in panels and conversation about researching the enslaved past, disseminating findings to the broader public, and breaking down disciplinary boundaries to collectively work to tell a fuller story about the history of the American university.

Washington and Lee University

Working Group on the History of African Americans at Washington and Lee University

The president of Washington and Lee appointed a committee to examine the role of African Americans in the history of the University. In his instructions to the group, President Ruscio emphasized that its work should include a straightforward look at the history of enslaved people at the institution and should also identify themes, trends, and important moments up to the present time. The site, as of 2018, includes an 1834 document that lists the enslaved men and women owned by Washington College.

William and Mary

Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation

The project includes a focus on contributing to and encouraging scholarship on the 300-year relationship between African Americans and the College, and building bridges between the College and Williamsburg and Greater Tidewater area. William and Mary held slaves and used slave labor from its founding to the Civil War, and failed to take a stand against segregation during the Jim Crow era. It includes a timeline of the history between William and Mary and African Americans, and access to guides to resources and special collections held at Swem Library on African Americans.

Yale University

Yale, Slavery, and Abolition

On the occasion of Yale University's 300th anniversary, it initiated lectures and a pamphlet that took a more critical and less celebratory approach to its history. The report, “Yale, Slavery, and Abolition” noted that Yale chose to name most of its colleges after slave owners and pro-slavery leaders. In 1831, Yale leaders helped stop an effort to expand higher education for African Americans in New Haven. This project and its essay notes that important abolitionists associated with Yale's history have not been honored.

University of Wisconsin

Ku Klux Klan at the University of Wisconsin

Chancellor Rebecca Black convened a group to examine the history of the presence of the Ku Klux Klan between 1919 and 1926 at the University of Wisconsin, where there was little opposition to student groups using this name. She did this following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Following the 2018 report of the committee, the Chancellor allocated funds for a permanent exhibition devoted to this era in University of Wisconsin history and support for teaching lines that would address the injustices created by racism.

Columbia University

1968: Columbia in Crisis

Featuring documents, photographs, and audio from the Columbia University Archives, “1968: Columbia in Crisis” examines the the causes, actions, and aftermath of a protest that “captivated the campus, the nation, and the world.” The online exhibition is based upon a physical exhibition of the same name which was on display in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University from March 17 to August 1, 2008.

New York Times

“7 Times in History When Students Turned to Activism”

In response to nationwide student protests for gun regulations, the New York Times published an article highlighting the history of student activism on college and high school campuses in the U.S.

Northwestern University

They Demanded Courageously: The 1968 Northwestern Bursar’s Office Takeover

This online exhibit tells the story of the occupation of the Bursar’s office by members of Black student organizations on Northwestern University's campus. The protest heightened awareness of Black students’ experiences of racial insensitivity on campus. The online exhibit includes an overview of the reasons why students of For Members Only (FMO) and the Afro-American Student Union (AASU) presented demands to the University, as well as the legacy of the takeover. “They Demanded Courageously” also features key documents found at Northwestern University Archives, a timeline, participant biographies, photographs, and bibliographic resources. All images and documents featured on this site are held at Northwestern University Archives.

Penn State

Moments of Change: Remembering ’68

A college-wide project bringing together Penn State students, faculty, and alumni to explore what it means to live through historic and contemporary times of change. The college team commemorated the anniversary with events that are rooted in this critical period, including panel discussions, movie nights, and lectures with an eye to understanding what happened not only at Penn State, but on other campuses nationally and internationally.

Penn State

1968: Student Activism at Penn State and Beyond

Using archival documents, photographs, and books from the Eberly Family Special Collections Library, this student-curated exhibit highlights the social and political turbulence of the late 1960s across the country and around the world. This public exhibit is a part of the larger “Moments of Change: Remembering ’68” online project (see previous entry).

Pratt Institute

A Touch of Spring: The Pratt Student Protests of 1969

“A Touch of Spring”—named after the term President James B. Donovan used to describe the actions of students protesting issues of civil rights, neighborhood gentrification, and other social and political concerns—this exhibition showcases original documents from the Pratt Institute School of Information records, as well as images from the archives at Pratt’s Brooklyn campus. The research that went into this exhibition uncovers the events leading to the unrest, its aftermath, and the role of students who were enrolled in the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at the time.

UC Berkeley

Free Speech Movement Digital Archive

Having received a $3.5 million gift from Stephen M. Silberstein, the University of California Berkeley Library and the Bancroft Library began an ambitious program to document the role of Mario Savio and other participants in the Free Speech Movement. During the three year project (1998–2001), the archive collaborated with institutions and organizations in the fields of free speech, student and social protest, and higher education. The Archive therefore acts as a hub connecting the websites, finding aids, and digital collections which expand on the Bancroft collections. Last updated 7/30/12.

UC Berkeley

The Berkeley Revolution: A Digital Archive of One City’s Transformation in the late-1960s & 1970s

Started as an honors undergraduate course, “The Berkeley Revolution” is an online archival project documenting the city’s transformation during the late 1960s and 1970s. Berkeley may be best identified with student protests and the Free Speech movements of the mid to late ’60s, but the project emphasizes the fact that change did not stop with Mario Savio. Berkeley became a stage for the Black Arts and Black Power movements, Women’s Liberation, the movement for ethnic studies, the organic revolution, the gay rights movement, the Disability Rights Movement, and the free school movement.

University of Chicago

A Brief History of Protest at the University of Chicago: 1915–1992

This physical exhibit (now closed) displays documentation of student protests that have occurred at the University of Chicago. The material was drawn primarily from the digitized University archives, especially the University of Chicago Photographic Archive and University of Chicago Campus Publications. The scope of the materials, ranging from 1915 to 1992, match the coverage in these two collections.

University of Florida

Alternative UF: Counterculture Through the Decades

This exhibition, created by undergraduate students at the University of Florida, focuses on campus activism during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. Covering three decades of UF history and culture, the exhibit features photographs, counterculture newspapers, yearbooks, artifacts, and other items from the holdings of the University Archives, the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, and the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections. The exhibition covers political activism, sit-ins, and other Civil Rights demonstrations, protests against the Vietnam War, the alternative press at UF, and the hunt for homosexuals and other “subversives” on campus by the Johns Committee in the “age of protest."

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

I Raised My Hand to Volunteer

This online exhibit from the University of North Carolina contains digitized documents, images, and other archival materials relating to 1960s student protests in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The website contains information, documents, and photos from several student-led protest movements at UNC in the 1960s. The movements include efforts to integrate Chapel Hill businesses, to repeal the controversial Speaker Ban law, to fight for improved pay and working conditions for food service employees on campus, and to protest against the Vietnam War.

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Protests & Social Action at UW-Madison during the 20th Century

“Protests & Social Action at UW-Madison during the 20th Century” does not claim to be exhaustive, but rather attempts to provide a representative selection of student protest throughout the decades, using sources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives. The collection includes digital copies of the four-volume history of the University, plus many other useful sources. The Wisconsin Historical Society Archives also include strong collections on social action.

Trinity College

Trinity and Slavery: The History and Memory of Slavery at Trinity College

"In the Spring of 2019, the Trinity College community embarked on an investigation of the college’s historic connection to the multi-faceted institutions of slavery and their ongoing reverberations on campus, across the nation, and around the world in a course designed by Professor Alexander Manevitz titled “The History and Memory of Slavery at Trinity.” Together, we created a website to showcase our research findings and public history recommendations."