Interesting article on "reparations" at Brown University in today's NYTimes.
I've just posted a snip.
March 13, 2004
Brown U. to Examine Debt to Slave Trade
By PAM BELLUCK
ROVIDENCE, R.I., - When Ruth J. Simmons became the president of Brown University nearly three years ago, one striking fact could not be overlooked.
A great-granddaughter of slaves, Dr. Simmons was the first African-American president of an Ivy League university. But the 240-year-old university she was chosen to lead had early links to slavery, with major benefactors and officers of it having owned and traded slaves.
``It certainly didn't escape me, my own past in relationship to that,'' Dr. Simmons said. ``I sit here in my office beneath the portrait of people who lived at a different time and who saw the ownership of people in a different way. You can't sit in an office and face that every day unless you really want to know, unless you really want to understand this dichotomy.''
Now, Dr. Simmons, whose office is in a building constructed by laborers who included slaves, has directed Brown to start what its officials say is an unprecedented undertaking for a university: an exploration of reparations for slavery and specifically whether Brown should pay reparations or otherwise make amends for its past. |
