Students Uncover College's Pro-slavery Past but Face Opposition from Administration

[lastlib]

https://www.thepitchkc.com/william-jewell-students-uncover-colleges-pro-slavery-past-but-face-opposition-from-school-administration

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Nearly two years ago, students at William Jewell College contacted Dr. Christopher Wilkins, associate professor of history and chair of the department at the school, with questions about the college’s history of slavery. Wilkins, whose expertise is in the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction, was also curious to do a thorough accounting of the university’s past.
Together, Wilkins, Jewell students, faculty, and alumni formed the Slavery, Memory, and Justice Project. Members of the new initiative looked through thousands of documents—court and census records, wills, and narratives written by enslaved people—covering every aspect of Jewell’s pro-slavery past.
Their findings directly contradict the three historical books that the college promotes as its official history.
“If my students and I accepted histories promoted by the college, we would have concluded that slavery had no influence on the founding. That was unlikely,” Wilkins said.

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More at link.

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My alma mater (sigh). I had no idea of this history. That was apparently deliberate on the part of the school's powers-that-be. Eye-opening, depressing, but not surprising, given the times in Missouri. I don't think I'll be reading this in the alumni newsletter.....

[llashram]

1. Missouri

yep. It is no real surprise with the history of all segments of this country's educational, financial(businesses-corporations) military et al steeped in the hate of American slavery, post-slavery segregation and the 21st-century advocates of trump that don't want the hate revealed. Cancel culture? No. Hide history and racist culture? Yes. Hate and racism must be excised as a cancerous tumour or cancer will kill us...

I'm 74 and racial hate has always been a part of my experience, both civilian and military. Waxing and waning over my decades of reason. And at one time there in the 60s I had hope. Yet the white nationalist-supremacists immediately started their reactionary push back against equal rights and voting rights for POC, African-Americans specifically. How did I know the reaction had started. Nixon and Atwater. Then Reagan, Bush I-II. Culminating with Putin's chump in Florida hiding in his palatial bunker. I wonder if he's paying his staff for cleaning and maintenance?

Anyway, at the instigation of that devil in Florida, hiding in his bunker, hate is back with a vengeance openly professed and exercised by millions, cops and civilians alike.

[lastlib]

2. That's a pretty accurate summary.

Even as a white guy, I have to CRINGE at the antipathy toward POC that has emerged since Obama's election. I hoped his election would signal a change; a change came, but alas, it moved in the wrong direction. So much the pity.