Coming to Terms With Our Links to Slavery

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/opinion/coming-to-terms-with-our-links-to-slavery.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Confronting Academia’s Slavery Ties” (Arts pages, March 6):

Harvard University’s hosting of a “public conference exploring the long-neglected connections between universities and slavery” is another positive step in a trajectory launched by Yale and Brown in the early 2000s.

Yet even more quarters of society — both in the public and private sector — need to follow academia’s example and delve more deeply into their connections with slavery, especially the ways in which the enslaved contributed to the success of early American organizations and institutions.

The words of Harvard’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust, ring true of us all: “Only by coming to terms with history can we free ourselves to create a more just world.” Time is of the essence; that more just world is long overdue.

(Rev.) SHAUN S. BROWNCAPE MAY, N.J.