In the midst of substantial media coverage, Brown's new Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice commenced its public work Thursday night with a panel discussion titled "Unearthing the Past: Brown University, the Brown Family and the Rhode Island Slave Trade."
Although media attention has focused on the possibility that the University will make financial reparations for slavery, panel discussion focused on Rhode Island's role in the slave trade, in particular the involvement of the Brown family.
About 100 people attended the panel, held in Salomon 101, although few of them were undergraduates. President Ruth Simmons, who formed the committee last summer, was not present at the panel and instead participated in a University fundraising event in Darien, Conn.
The event began with an introduction by committee chair and Professor of American Civilization James Campbell, who urged members of the Brown community to think deeply about the issues of slavery and justice as reflected in the history of the University and the nation. "What responsibility, if any, accrues to us in the present as inheritors of this mixed legacy?" he asked.
Brown University was founded as Rhode Island College in 1764 and renamed after Nicholas Brown Jr., a 1786 graduate, in recognition of a $5,000 contribution.
Brown was the son of Nicholas Brown Sr. and nephew to Moses Brown, an abolitionist Quaker, and John Brown, a Rhode Island slave trader and businessman.
Panel members J. Stanley Lemmons, professor at Rhode Island College, and Joanne Melish Ph.D '96, professor at the University of Kentucky, focused their remarks on Rhode Island's centrality to the African slave trade. During the 18th century, between 60 and 90 percent of ships sailing to Africa each year began their journey in Rhode Island, Lemmons said.
It is a great irony that although Newport and Bristol were the premier U.S. ports in the slave trade, Rhode Island was the first state to outlaw the slave trade in 1787, according to Lemmons. Later, it was Moses Brown's Abolitionist Society that brought charges against John Brown for illegal slave trading. John Brown was acquitted of the charges, although his ship was condemned by the courts, Lemmons said.
Melish spoke about the "erasure of the historical significance and experience of slavery in New England.
"New England, as a region, has been invested in the distance between itself and the evil, slave-holding South," she said.
That sentiment was echoed by panel member Bela Teixiera, executive director of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society. Texiera's organization attempts to relay Rhode Island's experience with slavery to the black community, which traditionally has not had access to such materials, according to Texiera.
Panel member Rhett Jones Ph.D. '76, Brown professor of history and Africana studies, said that although slavery existed in every pre-modern human society, it was unique in the New World because of the way it was linked to race.
"What we did in the United States is to give race meaning," Jones said. "So when we say that a person is black, we say it tells us something about his physical abilities, his intellectual abilities and ... his moral character."
It is interesting to question how much the African American community itself has bought into this concept of race, Jones said. Jones said he recalls a time when organizers of some African-American social events would post brown paper bags on the door, and anyone with skin darker than the bag would not be allowed inside the events.
During the question-and-answer session, many audience members focused their comments on reparations and the specifics of the committee's formation and mandate.
J. Roy McKechnie '55, an alumni representative for his class, said that when the New York Times published its March 13 front-page article on the Steering Committee for Slavery and Justice, "my phone began to burn itself off the wall with irate, curious or simply puzzled classmates."
McKechnie demanded to know the qualifications of the committee members. Campbell referred him to the committee's Web site and said Simmons selected members for their diversity of viewpoints and areas of expertise. Campbell said he feared the New York Times piece had given readers the notion Simmons is pushing the committee toward advocating economic reparations, and said he wanted to disavow that impression.
McKechnie also criticized the Third World Transition Program and the practice of black students marching separately during Commencement. Campbell referred him to The Herald's Thursday coverage of Simmons' announcement that TWTP should be open to all students.
Scott Ewing '05 asked Campbell how the three undergraduates on the Committee were chosen. Ewing added he was "disappointed" to have found out about the committee only after its members had been chosen.
Campbell responded that he "got a letter in (his) mailbox" from Simmons with the names of committee members, but he told The Herald Tuesday that he did appoint one committee member, Seth Magaziner '06.
British freelance journalist Joanna Walters, who was working on an article for the London Guardian, asked the panel members what they thought the committee should do if descendants of Brown family slaves came forward and asked for a place in the discussions.
All the panel members steered discussion away from answering Walters' question directly, but later in the discussion, Melish said institutionalized racism continues to be felt today, even by recent immigrants, making the concept of reparations a broad one.
"When we think about our damaged society, we need to think about people damaged by results - that is, people of color in general," she said. "But when we talk, it always comes down to 'Who's entitled?'"
