The Board of Visitors at William and Mary have just approved an eight-year education project regarding William and Mary's history with slavery. The "Lemon Project," named for a slave owned by the College in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, will focus on research and education regarding slavery at the College and in Williamsburg. Robert Engs, a University of Pennsylvania history professor, will run the project. Here's a story about it.
Provost P. Geoffrey Feiss said of the project, "In my personal opinion, an apology from a university doesn't mean much — I can apologize, but I wasn't here .... I think the university committing to studying a group of people and their impact on the community means so much more."
Terry Meyers, a W&M English professor, has more about the College's history here; and I have another piece of the story, about W&M's history professor Thomas Dew here. Dew was a leading proslavery theorist, an important legal historian--and a key figure in my study, University, Court, and Slave, which I hope to finish one of these days.
Alfred Brophy
Update: I see that there are nearly fifty comments to the Daily Press' story on William and Mary's initiative (a link to the comments is here). Some of the more strident ones are:
make amends? for what? guilt trip? W&M should make no amends but encourage blacks to thank their maker that their ancestors were brought to america. otherwise they might now be dancing and chanting around an open fire, with their spears held high, in a country with more poverty, starvation, pestulance, desease, and unrest than anywhere in the world.they need to become all-american and rid themselves of the african part. they need to make the amends.
I am an American American! If you do not like it here then those people should move to Africa. You should be so lucky that you are here in this great land and that your african ancestors were shipped here.
Well at least Lemon had a work ethic. That can't be said for his descendants.
blacks today and slaves have alot in common, well at least 2 out of 3 things. Here is a list I put together.
Slaves Blacks Today
place to stay Section 8
Food to eat Food Stamps
worked in the field ???So what? Everything was legal and affirmed several times by the supreme court. No one or any firm that was operating within the law is liable for anything period. You can continue to flog yourself and drown in your perceived guilt but quit trying to suck others into your world of hell.
In my opinion, such comments are further evidence of the need for some serious discussion of the institution of slavery and Jim Crow and its legacy. I applaud William and Mary for their courage in undertaking this multi-year study and look forward to hearing more from them.
Update 2: The Flat Hat reports on the BOV's resolution in an article about Michael Powell's term on the BOV, which has just ended. It says:
[T]he board approved a resolution acknowledging that the College owned and exploited slaves from its founding until the Civil War and that the College discriminated against blacks during the Jim Crow era. The resolution expressed support for the Lemon Project, a long-term research effort named after a slave who was owned by the College. The board’s committee on academic affairs discussed the project at length on Thursday.
Expected to span five to 10 years, the Lemon Project will include seminars and research about the College’s historical role in slavery and its discrimination against blacks.
“We have a responsibility to go back and talk to the pioneering students who came to William and Mary in the ’60s and ’70s,” College Provost Geoff Feiss said. “How do we create an institution that honors its diversity and comes to grips with the harsh and bitter realities of what happened?”
Update 3: Here is the BOV"s Resolution
The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation
WHEREAS, the College of William and Mary acknowledges that it owned and exploited slave labor from its founding to the Civil War; and
WHEREAS, the College acknowledges that it engaged in the discrimination and exclusion that characterized educational institutions during the era of Jim Crow and disfranchisement and that it failed to challenge these hurtful policies; and
WHEREAS, the legacy of that era has encumbered the College’s relationships with the Williamsburg and Peninsular African American community, many of whom are descendents of antebellum slaves and many more of whom have worked for or attended the College since that time; and
WHEREAS, as a preeminent institution of higher learning we are dedicated to understanding the truth of our past and the impact that past may have had on us and on the community; and
WHEREAS, only of late have we learned of an African American named Lemon who was owned by the College during the late 18th and early 19th century, served it well, and, remarkably, carved out a life of his own in Williamsburg.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary heartily supports the creation of the Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation that will be a long-term research project under the sponsorship of the Office of the Provost, involving College faculty, staff, and students as well as members of the Greater Williamsburg community, to better understand, chronicle, and preserve the history of blacks at the College and in the community and to promote a deeper understanding of the indebtedness of the College to the work and support of its diverse neighbors.
Update 4: Over at prawfs, Eric Johnson is talking about Harvard Law School's connections to slavery and has a suggested memorial to the slaves owned by Isaac Royall, an early benefactor of Harvard. We're spoken before about Royall here and here, too.
Update 5: Here is a story from William and Mary about the project. It reports that Dr. Robert Engs will retire from Penn's history department this year and he will direct the project out of the provost's office. I look forward to hearing more about it. And soon we should be hearing more about the fruits of Ira Berlin's year-long course at the University of Maryland.
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