A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institution's complex and contested involvement in slavery-setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy; Craig Steven Wilder; a leading historian of race in America; lays bare uncomfortable truths about race; slavery; and the American academy.Many of America's revered colleges and universities-from Harvard; Yale; and Princeton to Rutgers; Williams College; and the University of North Carolina-were soaked in the sweat; the tears; and sometimes the blood of people of color. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the “savages†of North America and played a key role in white conquest. Later; the slave economy and higher education grew up together; each nurturing the other. Slavery funded colleges; built campuses; and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly; as Wilder shows; our leading universities were dependent on human bondage and became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained it. Ebony and Ivy is a powerful and propulsive study and the first of its kind; revealing a history of oppression behind the institutions usually considered the cradle of liberal politics.
#7710267 in Books Cambria Press 2008-12-28Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.02 x .88 x 5.98l; 1.45 #File Name: 1604975679332 pages
Review