Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities

A groundbreaking exploration of the intertwined histories of slavery racism and higher education in America from a leading African American historian. A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institutions complex and contested involvement in slavery–setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Browns troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy Craig Steven Wilder a rising star in the profession of history lays bare uncomfortable truths about race slavery and the American academy. Many of Americas revered colleges and universities–from Harvard Yale and Princeton to Rutgers Williams College and UNC–were soaked in the sweat the tears and sometimes the blood of people of color. Slavery funded colleges built campuses and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly as Wilder shows our leading universities dependent on human bondage became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them. Ebony and Ivy is a powerful and propulsive study and the first of its kind revealing a history of oppression behind the institutions usually considered the cradle of liberal politics.