A Slavery Memorial at Brown University

The University's ad hoc "Commission on Memorials" has just issued a report recommending a memorial to Brown's connections to slavery.  Memorializing universities' connections pose somewhat different issues from memorials to the slave trade, to emancipation, to slave insurrections, and (especially) to a "faithful slave."  For universities were, in many cases, sites for the promotion of pro-slavery literature.  It's hard to memorialize a book, but I hope that some of the memorials we're now seeing will include some text from academics' proslavery writings.  That will give a sense of the academy's special role in slavery.

One of the stories that is not told so much about Brown is that in the late antebellum period it was a seat of anti-slavery advocacy.  I would think that a memorial might also contain something about its president Francis Wayland, for instance, who very publicly attacked slavery (for instance in debate with South Carolina Minister Richard Fuller).

 

The image, of a marker to Meshack Roberts, is from Sally Greene.

 

Update: Actually, on second thought maybe it isn't so hard to commemorate a book.  The UDC's Confederate Soldier Monument on the UNC Campus ("Silent Sam") has an image of a student reading a book on it.  There's a detail at the left.

The more memorable part of Silent Sam is the solider standing on top of the granite pedestal.  There is a picture of the soldier below the fold.  

Alfred Brophy