Brown University forms committee to examine institution's ties to slavery

Jet, April 5, 2004

Brown University President Dr. Ruth Simmons, the great-granddaughter of slaves, has appointed a Committee on Slavery and Justice who over the next two years will examine the school's historical ties to slavery and debate whether the Rhode Island university should make amends.

Simmons, the first African-American to lead an Ivy League school, appointed 16 faculty members, students and administrators, including historians, political scientists and experts in the fields of African studies, American civilization and ethnic studies.

According to the university's newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald, the committee, which was formed last spring, will not only focus on reparations for the descendants of slaves, but will include discussions of the Holocaust, Japanese-American internment during World War II, Native American land claims and other issues of ethnic and racial injustice.

"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," Simmons told the New York Times. "You can't sit in an office and face that every day unless you really want to understand this dichotomy."

A university booklet titled A Short History notes the connections between the institution and its namesake family, but omits the family's connections to the slave trade.

Nicholas Brown, who was one of the original 24 incorporators in 1764, was a wealthy merchant whose family gave generously to the school. He also became the first Rhode Islander prosecuted under the federal Slave Trade Act of 1794 and had to forfeit his slave ship.

Nicholas Brown's brother John continued to defend slavery until his death. Another brother, Moses Brown, and their nephew, Nicholas Brown Jr., however, became ardent abolitionists and worked to end slavery by pushing for a tougher prohibition against slave ships entering American ports.

"What I'm trying to do, you see, in a country that wants to move on, I'm trying to understand as a descendent of slaves how to feel good about moving on," Simmons told the Times.

"If the committee comes back and says, 'Oh it's been lovely and we've learned a lot,' but there's nothing in particular that they think Brown can do or should do, I will be very disappointed."