HARVARD MERRIT GARLAND

Merrick Garland Commencement HONOR? From the founding of Harvard in 1636 until slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts in 1783, Harvard's faculty and staff enslaved 70 people. According to NPR, "[s]ome of those who were enslaved lived on campus and were responsible for providing care for Harvard's presidents, professors and students." Harvard also profited from "the beneficence of donors who accumulated their wealth through slave trading; from the labor of enslaved people on plantations in the Caribbean islands and in the American South; and from the Northern textile manufacturing industry, supplied with cotton grown by enslaved people held in bondage," the report reads. Isaac Royall Jr. (1719–1781), a wealthy merchant who owned and traded in slaves, left Harvard a bequest in his will that helped the school establish its first professorship in law. Harvard Law School even incorporated elements of Royall's coat of arms into its seal. https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu/report/introduction-and-findings#a-community-reckoning-with-slavery-and-its-legacies