When Brown University released its landmark 2006 report documenting the institution’s historical involvement in slavery, many of its recommendations were one-time fixes: revising the university’s official history, creating memorials, and the like. Some, however, required longer-term engagement, such as the creation of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ), a research hub focusing on the history of slavery and its contemporary impacts.
For Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, the former president of Brown who commissioned the report, these sorts of projects are particularly significant.
Dr. Ruth J. Simmons is former president of Brown University.
“If you want to take this history seriously, one of the most important things to do is to acknowledge it in an ongoing way,” Simmons said at the time. “We ought to say to ourselves, what can we do to incorporate it into what we do as a university?”
CSSJ has succeeded beyond expectations, becoming an international leader in the way that slavery and its legacies are taught and understood. Newly re-named for Simmons, it recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and a $10 million endowment.
“It’s been really gratifying to see the center grow from an idea in a few lines of a report to something that is having an impact in ways that we couldn’t have imagined,” said Dr. Christina H. Paxson, president of Brown.
Part of what has distinguished the center is a refusal to limit its work to the history of slavery in the United States.
