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ALJASSAR: Confronting slavery

The University should be commended for researching its past use of slavery

The history of slavery is inextricably linked to the history of the University. Enslaved laborers built our Grounds from the laying of the cornerstone at Pavilion VII in 1817 through the Civil War. They terraced the Lawn, served the needs of students and laid the bricks we walk on today, often in the face of abuse and humiliation.

In 1832, the Board of Visitors purchased a man named Lewis Commodore for $580. A group of rowdy students assaulted him five years later in protest of the school’s strict schedule. In 1838, two students delivered a “severe and inhuman beating” with impunity to ten-year-old slave Fielding, according to his owner Professor Bonnycastle. Another student confessed to beating a young enslaved girl unconscious in 1856. Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one child with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman 30 years his junior whom he did not free in his will. Their relationship was rooted in an imbalance of power. Like the other 600 humans owned by Jefferson, she was his property.

For most of our history, we have paid little heed to these stories. Slavery was abolished in 1865, but its vestiges persist today, an issue that fellow columnist Gray Whisnant explored in detail in a column last year. Understanding slavery at the University is critical to being informed about current race and inequality issues here. “Acknowledging this dark part of our past helps us appreciate the progress our University has made,” said Parisa Sadeghi, the education and outreach chair for the Minority Rights Coalition (MRC). “It also reminds us to fight complacency and maintain the progressive spirit that brought us to where we are.”

Fortunately, recent initiatives on Grounds have begun to directly address our history with slavery. We have a long road ahead: locals still refer to our Grounds as the “plantation” guilty of “whitewashing” its history, per a 2011 report by the University and Community Action for Racial Equality (UCARE) group. But I am optimistic, and I commend the University for taking steps to confront slavery.

At the student level, there has been a trend over the past few years within the University Guide Service (UGS) to emphasize to probationary members the importance of discussing slavery during historical tours. “Part of the UGS curriculum is to not only learn about the stories of specific slaves, but to learn about how to incorporate them properly on a tour,” said current Probationary Chair Liamarie Quinde. “We invite Monticello tour guide Brandon Dillard and former Monticello tour guide Elizabeth Jones who specialize in slavery to speak to the class.” By telling the stories of enslaved individuals, UGS promotes student and community engagement in conversation about our history of slavery, a subject to which we have turned a blind eye for so long.

Additionally, UGS organizes the annual Colonnade Ball, a semi-formal initially intended to raise funds to reconstruct the Lambeth Colonnades. The focus of the event has shifted in recent years to other projects around Grounds. This year, Colonnade Ball falls on November 14 and will benefit the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, though proceeds will be earmarked for the memorialization of enslaved laborers. “It is our duty… to commemorate the men and women who built and sustained this school without receiving pay, credit, or basic human respect,” said UGS Outreach Chair Emily McDuff.

At a more administrative level, the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University was founded last year in response to an April 2013 meeting of the President’s Cabinet. Dr. Marcus Martin, vice president and chief officer for diversity and equity, proposed the formation of a commission to explore slavery at the University and “to make recommendations as to the next steps the University could take in response to this history.”

Two weeks ago, the Commission hosted a symposium titled Universities Confronting the Legacy of Slavery. Among the scheduled items were a film screening on slavery at the University, a grave site commemoration at the recently discovered African-American cemetery on Grounds, several speaker events and a walking tour of the Academical Village with UGS. The Commission aims to implement future projects such as appropriate memorialization and interactive media in the Rotunda.

John Adams’ last words are rumored to be “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” Indeed, Jefferson’s liberal ideals of an educated citizenry and the illimitable freedom of the human mind remain in permanence at the University. But along with those ideals Jefferson held the beliefs that blacks are biologically inferior to whites and that slavery was necessary because blacks are, according to Jefferson, “as incapable as children at taking care of themselves.” Such beliefs are the underpinnings of slavery, an institution whose history cannot be distilled from the present. Though there is much work to be done, the University’s growing student and administrative initiatives to bring slavery to a heightened level of public awareness are commendable. We must continue to tell the history of the enslaved men and women on whose backs our University was built — men and women who will be nameless and faceless unless we preserve their stories.

Nazar Aljassar is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at n.aljassar@cavalierdaily.com.

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