On March 3rd Harvard held a conference, titled “Universities and Slavery: Bound by History,”. During the conference they tried to highlight the truth about Harvard and other institutions history of involvement wth slavery.

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic also gave the Keynote speech and had some strong words.

To kick off University President Drew G. Faust delivered the opening remarks saying:

“Harvard was directly complicit in slavery from the college’s earliest days in the 17th century,” said Faust, who announced plans for the conference in March 2016. “This history and its legacy have shaped our institution in ways we have yet to fully understand. Today’s conference is intended to help us explore parts of the past that have remained all but invisible.”

Then Coates came to the stage:

“I think every single one of these universities needs to make reparations,”

“I don’t know how you get around that, I just don’t. I don’t know how you conduct research that shows that your very existence is rooted in a great crime, and just say ‘Well,’ shrug — and maybe, at best, say ‘I’m sorry’ — and you walk away.

“I think you need to use the language of ‘reparation,‘” he continued. “I think it’s very, very important to actually say that word, to acknowledge that something was done in these institutions.”

It’s unknown if anyone at Harvard was expecting such words from Coates, a strog call to right the wrong more-so than just apologizing and holding conferences!

However, Uni Pres. Faust has already shut down the chance to pay reparations and told The Harvard Crimson last fall.

“I am not aware of any slaves that were owned by Harvard itself, and slavery was much less of a presence and an economic force in New England than it was in Washington, D.C., and the South,” she said. “Mostly, slave records were kept as economic records, business records, and the records we have of slaves at Harvard are much scarcer and less complete.”

He also voiced his disagreement at the conference.

Sad, Harvard could finally make a positive move if it just put it’s hand in it’s pocket and gave real atonement, setting an example!

Read more on Atlanta Black Star.