The Descendants of Harvard Slaves Titus, Venus, Juba and Bilhah should be Harvard Legacies

In 2017 a plaque on the side of Wadsworth house was dedicated to four slaves who lived and worked at Harvard. I happened upon the ceremony, presided over by Harvard President Drew Faust, and a crowd of spectators, and reporters on my way to get coffee on break. Being African American, myself, I was intrigued by the history of slavery being memorialized at world famous Harvard University, where I've worked for over 20 years. One of the names, Titus, was very familiar to me. It was my grandfather's name, passed down to my father, and brother as a middle name, and given to another of my brothers as a first name. The plaque reads:

Titus & Venus

Lived and worked here as enslaved persons in the household of
President Benjamin Wadsworth (1725-1737)

Juba & Bilhah

Lived and worked here as enslaved persons in the household of
President Edward Holyoke (1737-1769)

This simple plaque serves to memorialize a tragic history that was the basis of the American economy nearly 300 years: the forced and uncompensated labor of black people in order to enrich their white owners, and the establishment of the racial caste system, opening up opportunities to white people, and closing them off to black people, resulting in the cumulative enrichment of white society, which depended on the exploitation and corresponding impoverishment of black society. Slavery and racism became the foundation of a false meritocracy.

These four individuals' lives symbolize the lives of untold numbers of enslaved people of Harvard, but who were they as people? It is likely that their lives were entirely consumed by their identity as enslaved people, as opposed to a chosen occupation of work, and that is how they are commemorated. But still I wonder what they dreamed about, living as enslaved domestics at a prominent institute of higher learning. Could they read and write? Did they yearn for knowledge and education? Did they seek freedom for themselves and their children, or accept their fate as a condition of survival? It is worth noting that around the time of their enslavement at Harvard, 1755, two slaves, Mark and Phillis, were publicly executed in Cambridge for conspiring to murder their master, Captain John Codman. In Edward Holyoke's diary there is an account of four slaves running away from their owner, Mr. Davis, and a slave murdering his master, Dr. Griffin. All around Venus and Titus, Juba and Bilhah there were pockets of active resistance.

Very little is documented about these slaves' lives. There is no documentation of a relationship between Titus and Venus, except that of being enslaved to the same family. Venus is described in Wadsworth's journal as a "negro wench" who was in service to Wadsworth's wife. The account of her purchase by Benjamin Wadsworth is as follows: "Oct. 25. 1726. I bought a Negro Wench (thôt to be under 20 years old) of mr Bulfinch of Boston, Sail-maker, was to give 85 pounds for her; she came to our house at Cambridge this day, I paid no money down for her, but was to pay in a few months...I saw not her Husband, thô he had been discours’d wth before." President Wadsworth’s servant Titus was described as a Wampanoag Indian in First Church records, where he was one of only two non-white people permitted to participate in communion (First Church Cambridge), but his privileges were limited. Faculty notes from 1740 contain a decision to "forbid students from associating with Titus, a 'Molattoe slave of the late Reverend President Wadsworth.'" He was not permitted to enter the Harvard campus after President Wadsworth died, or to be sent there on errands. (Harvard University, Early Faculty Minutes, 1725-1806).

Though the names Juba and Bilhah are paired on the plaque, they likely did not work in Holyoke's household at the same time. Juba's name appears around 1748, and does not appear in Holyoke's journal in any weigh ins with Bilhah. He likely left before Bilhah came to live in the Wadsworth household. He was married to a slave owned by a Harvard professor named Ciceely, and there are several journal entries of him acommpanying Holyoke family members on various errands. Bilhah's name appears several times in President Holyoke's diary, as part of a list of annual weights of individual members of the household including both his family members and the slaves. There is one entry documenting that she gave birth to a son, on October 31, 1761, though there is no male member of household who appears to be her partner. The next entry where her name appears, the household is weighed, and the infant is not listed. The last entry April 24, 1764 is of her death, three years after giving birth. Who was the father of Bilhah's child? What happened to Bilhah's son? Did he belong to her or the Holyoke family? Did he stay with his mother in the Holyoke family as an infant, or was he sold as a capital asset? Who mourned Bilhah when she died?

These scant details about the lives of Titus, Venus, Juba, and Bilhah inspire curiosity, especially in this era of ancestry research and DNA analysis. How do we fill in the blanks in their stories? What country were their ancestors from? What customs did they leave behind? What were their original names? What names did their descendants adopt? Who are their descendants? How did the legacy of the enslavement of Titus, Venus, Juba and Bilhah impact the lives of their descendants? Are they living in poverty today, or have they achieved the "American Dream"? Perhaps if we could find the descendants of these four slaves, Harvard could make meaningful reparations to them, and restore some of the fruits of their labor back to their families.

There is a book on archive.org called Fair Harvard: A Story of American College Life by William Tucker Washburn. This book gives a much clearer picture about what life might have been like for slaves on campus. There are stories of sumptuous feasts being served by slaves, slaves acting roles for the amusement of their masters, and one appalling story of a slave, nicknamed "The Infant" because of his immense size, chained up and made drunk, then having a dog attack him to the mirth of the students: "The infant had just reason enough left in him to spring back for dear life, when snap went the dog's chain: and as the slave, forgetting that he was bound, turned to run, the dog's teeth buried themselves deep in the the fleshiest part of his person." It's unclear if this is autobiographical or historical fiction. In the wake of the college admissions scandal where wealthy parents paid admissions officers to help falsify qualifications for their coddled offspring, I think ancestors who sacrificed their bodies and lives to slave labor for the benefit of the Harvard community, are worth at least as much as ancestors who profited from that, and donated a few million dollars for a campus building.

Racism, it's Not Against the Law

Our nation has become immune to shock since President Trump, with the "Make America Great Again" mandate, has taken office. While listening to Michael Cohen's testimony this past week on MSNBC I learned that Trump used 129 million dollars in public money to pay for a Trump Links golf course in The Bronx, aside from the other little things his supporters have already dismissed, tax evasion, using charity money to pay for expensive self aggrandizing portraits, colluding with a foreign government to sway an election, paying mistresses for their silence, close to 500 instances of threatening enemies, and racist comments. What really struck me was that the commentators during the break in testimony in the context of Trump's myriad of illegal acts, dismissed his racist comments as "not against the law."

Not having committed a felony should be the lowest common denominator for the leader of our country, as it would be for a cashier at McDonald's. Moral and intellectual fitness should be equally important as a clean criminal record. Of course racism is not against the law. We have freedom of speech in the constitution, the wealth of our nation was built on the backs of black slaves, and for centuries our laws enforced slavery and white supremacy. Racism enforces this legacy. The evolution of social conscience, activism, and civil disobedience has gradually changed the laws to protect the rights of black people, women, the disabled, and the LGBTQ population. Changing the law is only one component of sharing power equally. The law does not punish racism, or even racist acts that cause harm, unless it is enforced.

Racism was incorporated into the law in the American colonies as a strategy to divide the races and render the lower classes less powerful against the ruling class. During Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia in 1676, people of all classes and races united against Governor William Berkeley, driving him from Jamestown, and setting the capitol on fire. Following the rebellion, the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 by the Virginia House of Burgesses prohibited black people, regardless of free status, from owning weapons, black people could not employ white people, court protections were established for a free and legal slave trade, and the apprehension of suspected runaway slaves . The codification of a "white identity" encouraged lower class white people to think they had more in common with the white ruling class than they had with black people. Racism became the fuel to make the lower classes do the bidding of the ruling class.

Almost two hundred years later, in 1857, the Dred Scott Decision in the United States Supreme Court case, Scott v. Sandford, a slave, Dred Scott, attempted to purchase his freedom for himself and his family, but his master refused. After moving through a series of lower courts, his case reached the Supreme Court, presided over by Judge Roger Taney, where in a 7-2 decision it ruled against Dred Scott, establishing that black people, whether free or slave, could not be United States citizens, and could not sue in court, the right to own slaves as property was affirmed in the constitution, and slaves, even if transported to free states by their owners, would remain slaves. Written into this decision was that slaves were an “inferior and subordinate class of being,” and that a permanent and intractable barrier should be erected between slaves (black people) and the white race. Judge Taney summed it up with the infamous quote that black people, whether slaves or former slaves, and their descendants had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Following the passage of the 13th amendment (1865), which freed the slaves, the 14th amendment (1868), which granted them full citizenship, and the 15th amendment (1870)which gave them the right to vote, full equality was still out of reach. In reaction to these Federal amendments, local and state “Jim Crow laws” perpetuated the legacy of racism for almost another century, until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended legal segregation and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, religion, or national origin.

The election of the first black United States president, Barack Obama was a sign of progress, but if you think we live in a post-racial society, consider how different the national reaction would have been if he had been alleged to have committed any one of the crimes or moral transgressions attributed to President Trump in the Senate Hearings, or if he had been alleged to have made "lawful," constitutionally protected racist comments against white people. The United States was founded on legally enforced racist white supremacy. So saying “racism is not against the law” is a bit of an understatement. The law should not be the only yardstick for what is morally right, as it is only a reflection of the values of the people currently in power. Change did not happen because the people in power willingly relinquished it. People demanded and fought for change, protested, and disobeyed unjust laws. The laws may have evolved to protect the people it originally exploited for free labor, but the attitudes that created those laws still exist. As the case of President Trump illustrates, laws are for the little people, not for the powerful, and they are selectively enforced to maintain the status quo.

Government Gangsta Rap or the Ballad of Brett Kavanaugh

With a scowl on my face and and a howl in my heart,
Giving you my testimony that boofing means fart.
And the Devil's triangle is gonna be
the three branches of government in the land of the free.

Gavel to gown, the more beers that I down,
Gonna lay the rules down and make your pussy frown,
And by pussy I mean cat,
Got a new definition for it, how about that?

I got a friend in the West Wing grabbing pussies with impunity
His white skin and celebrity give him immunity.
That Christine Blasey Ford looked really hurt,
Quick get me on the court before they find more dirt.
I can't break the law, 'cause I make the law,
I got legal control over your hoo-ha.

A young white boy shouldn't have to pay
for pawing unwilling pussies back in the day,
his future awaits in the corps elite,
making laws for young black men getting shot in the street.

When I see tribal land I go bling bling!
Uprooting brown people don't mean a thing.
Cause my pipe is long, and my pipe is strong,
push it through to Alaska like a horny King Kong!

My rivers of beer have led me here,
to the motherf*cking court where I'll reign supreme,
And when I get there never you fear,
Gonna break out a bottle of old Jim Beam!

Our Fight is Marching on!

[Sung to the tune of Glory Glory Hallelujah]

Harvard's Dining Halls are empty
For its workers are on strike
They are marching for fair wages
And against the healthcare hike
and for regular employment
They have now begun to fight
The Union's marching on!

[Refrain]
Harvard's wages are outrageous
Loss of benefits contagious
But we will remain courageous
Our fight is marching on!

Wealth and poverty are side by side
but our com-mun-ity is tight
Students, workers, and professors are now taking up the fight
other places pay much lower
but it doesn't make it right.
Give in our to our demands!

[Refrain]
Harvard's wages are outrageous
Loss of benefits contagious
But we will remain courageous
Our fight is marching on!

While negotiations stall
The endowment's climbing higher
They don't have to pay no taxes
'cause they're smart as Donald Trump
but they know the world is watching
As they hoard up all their cash
and let the workers starve.

[Refrain]
Harvard's wages are outrageous
Loss of benefits contagious
But we will remain courageous
Our fight is marching on!

Written for my union brothers and sisters who are striking for sustainable wages and benefits.

We Are All Harvard University Dining Services Workers

When the HUDS workers announced a strike to fight for sustainable wages and healthcare I felt a surge of renewed energy. Why? I’m not a dining services worker. I have worked for 22 years in the library system as part of HUCTW (Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers), which recently accepted a concessionary contract with 25% increase to our healthcare co-pays. HUCTW did successfully bargain against even worse proposed health care increases that were forced upon Harvard’s professional non- unionized staff: http://openharv.freeforums.net/. Though I have no children, and a higher salary than the average dining services worker, I have to budget very carefully to make ends meet, factoring in the high cost of living in the Boston area, and a hefty student loan debt from my undergraduate and two Master’s degrees. I also have crohn’s disease, a chronic illness, which I have managed successfully, thanks to my health benefits. I am a little apprehensive about the coming healthcare increases in January. I can’t imagine what an enormous burden these cuts to healthcare would be to a dining hall worker who makes less money than I do, and perhaps has a family, a chronic illness, or student loan debt, because…surprise! …they too have aspirations for themselves and their families.

Reading the press releases and the spin put on salary negotiations by the university has been rather disappointing. Saying the burden of the increasing cost of healthcare should be “shared” between the employees and their powerful, wealthy employer implies there is an equal partnership. Taking on the increased cost of healthcare would not really be a financial burden to Harvard, but it would be a severe financial burden to the relatively poorly compensated dining hall workers. Comparing Harvard’s salaries to employers in the private sector who pay even less is a reversal in the image Harvard generally maintains. As a university its peers are other Ivy Leagues, but as an employer it is proud to be better than the lowest paying employers? Harvard’s non-profit tax status should more than make up for the increased cost of healthcare for employees. According to a 2014 article in NY Magazine, if you took away Harvard’s tax exempt status, it would owe the state of Massachusetts 80 million a year. (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/take-away- harvards-nonprofit- status.html).

We are all workers performing different essential functions as part of the Harvard ecosystem. No one at Harvard is more important than anyone else. Some of us have more power or opportunities for reasons having more to do with privilege than hard work, merit or intelligence. Some people cook and put food on the table for a living. All of us need food on the table to sustain our lives. We are all students. Some of us are now, have been, or will be in the future. We learn just as much from being part of a community as we do from attending a university. Right now the Harvard dining hall workers are giving us a lesson in standing up for one’s beliefs, and speaking truth to power. There is a great deal at stake for them, and coordinating a strike to fight for better wages and benefits takes great courage. They are standing up for themselves with a powerful and unanimous spirit.

Clerical workers, professors, and even most professional administrative staff have more in common with the dining hall workers than they do with the handful of administrators who make the financial decisions about salaries and wages. Many of the professional staff publically objected to the increased financial strain the cuts to health benefits would impose on them and their families. Without a union they have sustained even worse cuts to their health benefits, which is minimally offset by their salaries, and the prestige of their positions. We all get sick, we all have families to support, and lives to sustain, that is what motivates us to work hard, and aspire to better things.

When I was an undergraduate at Cornell, President Frank T. Rhodes often spoke about “nurturing” the students. “Nurturing” is an appropriate word to describe the role dining hall workers have played in our community. They provide food, and they are a caring presence to the students and the staff. At the rally Wednesday evening one student described how dining hall workers made sure she got her food when her leg was in a cast, and I heard countless similar stories. Now they are giving us an important life lesson. Sustainable wages and good health care are worth fighting for, and they are leading the charge.

Where is the Love?

Recently I have felt overwhelmed by the violent events in the media, though I know that as an individual there is very little I can do about it. I've often avoided re-posting stories that have violent content or graphic pictures, constructing a narrative of my own life, more than my opinions on events beyond my control. That changed this week when I saw the viral story of the murder of Philando Castile, a hard working man in a loving relationship going about his evening errands with his girlfriend and her child.

Though I am bi-racial with a black father and a white mother, and am in a relationship with a white man, when I saw this woman, Lavish Reynolds calmy live streaming the horrific murder by police officer of her partner, I thought of myself and the bonds that connect us to one another. I did not see just another unarmed black man being shot dead by a police officer, I saw a woman losing the man she most loved and treasured in her life. There are so many obstacles and challenges to finding healthy loving relationships. I thought about how the bonds of trust and love we forge as individuals can be shattered and torn apart in an instant by an encounter with empowered fear and hate. I could not stop thinking about Philando Castile. He was not criminal with a record, and even if he was, he did not deserve to be executed at a random traffic stop. He had a good job, was well respected, and abided by the second amendment, the right to bear arms with a permit. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, driving while black.

At times like these I really feel helpless to do anything to change society, except to do my part, love my neighbor, my friends, my family, and speak out when I see injustice. Today my boyfriend and I took a walk in the woods in Concord, near Henry David Thoreau's cabin in the woods, and I mused to him that I would just like to remove my mind from the chaos and focus on beauty and nature instead. I understand why some people want to live "off the grid." Would it serve society better if we could each go off into our own little cabins in the woods and pray for humanity, living lives of prayer, sustainable gardening, and quiet contemplation? Unfortunately, or fortunately, the stages of life, infirmity, and old age do not make living in isolation feasible. We need each other's care, attention, and love.

So, while there are no simple answers, the most powerful thing we can do is make a choice within ourselves not to be an agent of evil and hate. Racism is a societal construct, but it has a very real and pernicious power to destroy society. When faced with a choice, look within, and always choose love, even if it is not easiest choice.

Black Lives Matter Vs. All Lives Matter

Responding to the phrase "Black Lives Matter" with "All Lives Matter" is to ignore the reality that throughout history black lives have not seemed to matter as much other lives except for their value as free labor or property. It is diffusing and confusing the power of the message and removing it from its historic and cultural context. Saying "All Lives Matter" is like marching against violence against women, while chanting "Women's Human rights, take back the night!" Would Helen Reddy's famous feminist anthem "I Am Woman Hear Me Roar" have had the same power if it began, "I am human, hear me roar?"

Black lives do not seem to matter very much in mainstream media. When have you ever seen a one hour 20/20 special about a missing or murdered black woman on prime time? You say "never"? So do I! I've seen several one hour specials about missing blonde white women, repeat episodes of Natalie Holloway, Elizabeth Smart, Dorothy Stratten, and Reeva Steenkamp. I don't see any redheads or brunettes on that list either. My heart aches for them, and I deeply sympathize with their suffering and that of their families. At the same time I wonder why I never see the stories of women of color treated with such sensitivity and care. Now because of increased awareness we are starting to learn the names of murdered black women. Though the story of Sandra Bland's demise in the custody of police has spread like wildfire on social media, we have yet to see a 1 hour prime time special to tell her story and make everyone aware of her uniqueness as a human being, how her death deeply impacted society, and the positive impact she might have had on the world had she survived.

I have seldom seen the phrase, "the girl next door," or "all American" used to describe a woman of color. In the media when something terrible happens to the "girl next door," it conjures up an image of a young, attractive white woman who is a blank slate of purity and promise. When a black person perishes, the story seems to center around what they might have done to cause it. It is seldom told from the slant of "when bad things happen to good people." "All Lives Matter" begs us to ignore the existence of blatant inequality, thus rendering the phrase virtually meaningless. If all lives really did matter, would it really be necessary to say so? Also, are we talking about human lives, animal lives, plant lives...? Is this a vegetarian mantra? Cecil the Lion's life seemed to matter more than black lives. So the phrase "Black Lives Matter" is a direct and positive affirmation repeated in face of incontrovertible evidence that in our society black human lives do not seem to matter as much.