In my final research project, I set out to explore institutions in the Universities Studying Slavery (USS) consortium and to start to develop ideas around a case for Bates to join this consortium. The USS “represents a multi-institutional collaboration focused in sharing best practices and guiding principles about truth-telling projects addressing human bondage and racism in institutional histories. Member schools are all committed to research, acknowledgment, and atonement regarding institutional ties to the slave trade, to enslavement on campus or abroad, and to enduring racism in school history and practice.” As a college that has an urgent need to address our with profits from enslaved labor as well as contemporary race relations, I believe that joining this consortium will foster collaboration that helps us reckon with our past and orient towards a more just environment for all members of our community.
My research question is: How does the timeline of emancipation in the United States (as dictated by policy) compare with the founding dates of higher education institutions in the United States?
I sought out to collect data on each American higher education institution within the consortium, the state where the school is located and when slavery was abolished in each state. This data collection is a small and incomplete piece of understanding the non-linear and complex process of emancipation in the United States.
“Visualizing Emancipation” is a project launched to map the end of slavery during the American Civil War. It was directed by Scott Nesbit, assistant professor of the digital humanities at the University of Georgia, and Edward L. Ayers, president emeritus, University of Richmond. The project states, “The end of slavery in the United States was a complex process that occurred simultaneously in courtrooms and plantations, on battlefields and city streets. It involved a wide variety of human interactions, many of which we represent in this map as emancipation events.”
In her American Cultural Studies thesis “Founded by Abolitionists, Funded by Slavery: Past and Present Manifestations of Bates College’s Founding Paradox,” Emma Soler writes about a conversation with Bates grad Ursula Rall ‘20 and how “a rosy-eyed institutional origin story… discredits the complaints of students of color when they voice concerns” (56). I think this gets at the root of why this glorified image of Bates actively harms students (white students AND students of color): Actively grappling with our institution’s harmful history informs our approach to current injustices and inequalities. By not only glossing over this past but intentionally twisting it to depict Bates as heroic and upstanding, we enable and maintain violence against BIPOC students, faculty and staff and the community of Lewiston. Soler says, “Without addressing our institutional historical narrative, our college will not be able to actualize goals regarding racial equity” (62). Creating ways to address and confront past injustices is crucial to contextualizing the lived experiences of students of color at Bates today.
Soler continues, “To date, there has been no organized group effort overseen by Administration to shift our historical discourse” (58). My final project attempts to contextualize such an effort in the context of how other universities are grappling with how their histories and contemporary conditions are tied to enslaved labor and ways to catalyze action around justice-oriented practices. Slowly, as a community, we are finding ways to interrogate our institution’s origin story and the ways Bates is framed often throughout the admissions process as a “social justice utopia.” However, we are not doing such work in a vacuum. We have an opportunity to collaborate with other universities facing the same complex histories and navigating how to move forward.
