Guest Writer Vivian Klotz attended Professor Eric Foner’s talk about Columbia’s recently discovered ties to slavery. He discussed the past and its impact on the present, as well as our role as students of the university.

In his opening remarks for a talk on the recently-released Columbia University and Slavery project, President Bollinger spoke to the influence the past has on the present. He emphasized that he believes it a mistake to divorce the two, both when talking about Columbia and the wider world. Though this idea carries with it a larger warning about the current and future challenges society may face, his words highlighted a key point about the relationship between academic institutions and their pasts. These are pasts which may be ugly, but, as Professor Eric Foner noted, must be explored and uncovered for the sake of the truth.
During the Spring 2015 semester, Professor Foner had led a research class aimed at uncovering the hitherto unexplored role of slavery in Columbia’s history. At this talk, one of his first students, Jared Odessky (CC ‘15), spoke alongside Jordan Brewington (CC ‘16), who took the course the following year.

Odessky took an interest in John Jay II, grandson of the beloved Founding Father, Chief Justice, and JJ’s Place namesake. He shared the ways in which progressive students, like Jay, pushed against the systems in place, and yet were products of their cities and the general mindsets of the time. While at school, Jay pushed for equality in the classroom in advocating for a black student who was denied the opportunity to study at the General Theological Seminary, and as a lawyer, Jay worked towards abolition. However, Columbia was very much a reflection of New York City. Students and teachers were, at the very least, passively involved in the system that perpetuated slavery, and classrooms were seen solely as places to learn Latin and Greek rather than to challenge ideas and social norms.

Brewington examined runaway slave advertisements from 1760 – 1805 and broke down her findings as revealing of two ideas: white consciousness and black resilience. For the former, she, like Odessky, noted the passive acceptance or active ignoring of slavery by whites. Brewington also cited specific examples of resilience, such as one slave who escaped from two separate owners. Brewington also touched on the issue of a dominant narrative, and how difficult it was to find anything other than a white narrative in her research, simply because of a lack of documentation.
She then asked each audience member to look at who they are in this world and to ask themselves who they would have been in the 18th century. As optimistic it is to believe oneself to be a timeless mover and shaker, the truth of the matter is generally the opposite. After all, it was that world, Brewington noted, that “ended up birthing the world of 2017.”

This discussion will probably never be over, but it does not mean that meaningful change is impossible during each person’s time at Columbia. Upon being asked what the community can do to improve the situation, Brewington said that the incoming class must be educated on the institution’s history, and that people should take the power they have to shape the Core seriously. Her own Lit Hum professor then spoke on the issue, pointing out that the Core is reinvented by each successive generation, and that as a result, students have more power than they may believe to shape the Core into something that reflects each and every person.

Students interested in Columbia University and Slavery could consider taking HIST 3518 or simply exploring the website. Here, one can find the results of each student’s research, including Jordan’s and Jared’s. For further reading on New York City and slavery, check out Mapping the African American Past, a joint program between Teacher’s College, CCI, and CCNMTL.

Image via NYT