Ebony & ivy : race, slavery, and the troubled history of America's universities / Craig Steven Wilder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilder, Craig Steven, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Discrimination in higher education--United States.

Discrimination in higher education.

Minorities--Education (Higher).

History.

African Americans.

Education, Higher.

United States.

Racism in education--United States.

Racism in education.

Slavery--United States.

Slavery.

Universities and colleges--United States--History.

Universities and colleges.

African Americans--History--Education (Higher).

Minorities--Education (Higher)--United States--History.

Minorities.

United States--Race relations.

Race relations.

Förenta staterna.

African Americans--Education (Higher).

Local Subjects:

Förenta staterna.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

423 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First U.S. edition.

Other Title:

Ebony and ivy

Place of Publication:

New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2013.

Summary:

A leading African American historian of race in America exposes the uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy, revealing that leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained it.

"A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institution's complex and contested involvement in slavery--setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a rising star in the profession of history, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy. Many of America's revered colleges and universities--from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC--were soaked in the sweat, the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of color. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of North America, and played a key role in white conquest. Later, the slave economy and higher education grew up together, each nurturing the other. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them. Ebony and Ivy is a powerful and propulsive study and the first of its kind, revealing a history of oppression behind the institutions usually considered the cradle of liberal politics"--Publisher's description.

Contents:

Prologue: A Connecticut Yankee at an ancient Indian mound

Slavery and the rise of the American college: The edges of the empire ; "Bonfires of the Negros" ; "The very name of a West-Indian" ; Ebony and ivy

Race and the rise of the American college: Whitening the promised land ; "All students & all Americans" ; "On the bodily and mental inferiority of the Negro" ; "Could they be sent back to Africa"

Epilogue: Cotton comes to Harvard.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-408) and index.

Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Awards - Nonfiction , Winner, 2014

ISBN:

9781596916814

1596916818

9781608194025

1608194027

OCLC:

826452230

Publisher Number:

9781596916814 53000