Brown will also appoint a committee to explore how best to carry out a major research and teaching initiative on issues of slavery and justice, building on resources in its academic departments and centers. It will also appoint a team of outside experts to recommend how it might strengthen its Department of Africana Studies.
The Slavery and Justice report mentions Henry Laurens, a planter and political leader, who ran the largest slave-trading house in North America in the 1750s. His firm, Austin and Laurens, handled the sales of more than 8,000 Africans. Laurens donated £50 to the College of Rhode Island, the original name of the university.
Brown’s founder, the Rev. James Manning, freed his only slave but accepted donations from slave owners and traders, including the Brown family of Providence. One family member, Nicholas Brown Jr., is the university’s namesake.
For more information on the report and the university’s response, visit www.brown.edu/slaveryjustice.
— By Shilpa Banerji
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