With the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, conversations abound about how to best recognize the use of enslaved labor in building and maintaining our school. Much of the focus is on how to create new memorials — perhaps as it should be. But equal attention should also be paid to smaller areas where the University could demonstrate its commitment to acknowledging this part of our school’s history.
One such example is — perhaps unsurprisingly — located on the Lawn. At Pavilion VII, where the cornerstone of the University was laid, a plaque commemorates that occasion, specifically noting the presence of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe, and very deliberately using passive voice. Nowhere does this plaque mention the enslaved laborers who laid the cornerstone, only one of whom we know by name (Thrimston Hern, Jefferson’s own slave).
To acknowledge the three Founding Fathers present at the laying of the cornerstone — and not the men who actually laid it — is telling of our general aversion to these facts. It also belittles the role enslaved laborers had in laying the cornerstone and, more broadly, in building our school. (It was not until 2007 that the University placed a plaque acknowledging slavery’s role in building our school by the Rotunda.) But going forward, such a plaque demonstrates the ways in which a larger memorial to enslaved laborers will not successfully tell the full story of slavery at the University.
Whatever the President’s Commission comes up with to memorialize enslaved laborers will undoubtedly be both significant and in good taste. In addition to any planned memorials, one of the roles the Commission should take on is to investigate and evaluate existing acknowledgments around the University and update them to reflect our renewed dedication to telling our full history. The plaque at Pavilion VII misses the mark by a long shot; how many other plaques laud particular individuals or recognize significant moments in our history without acknowledging the slave labor involved? At a school with a history as rich and deep as ours, there are likely many other markers around Grounds that should be reevaluated.
Jefferson, Madison and Monroe have been commemorated around our school and in world history over and over again — their stories require little further acknowledgment. But Thrimston Hern’s story is not commemorated in any physical way at the University. He and his peers are deserving of the same recognition as these three Founding Fathers in the creation of our school. If the President’s Commission hopes to truly comprehensively address our University’s history, this cannot only come from new symbols of gratitude to enslaved laborers; it also requires updating existing symbols that have systematically ignored enslaved laborers’ roles.
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