'Wilder knows a great deal about his subject and does not flinch from facing it head-on. 'A passionate recounting of the collective dehumanization of African-Americans coincident with the rise in power and prestige of the Atlantic college.'- The Wall Street Journal seems to be the first to look beyond particular campuses to take a broader look at the role of slavery in the growth of America's earliest universities.'- The New York Times 'Argues provocatively that the nation's early colleges, alongside church and state, were 'the third pillar of a civilization based on bondage'. Reviews About the Author Reviews Praise for Ebony and Ivy Įbony 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. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Later, the slave economy and higher education grew up together, each nurturing the other. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of North America, and played a key role in white conquest. 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. 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. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. Media Issues, Communication & JournalismĪ BCALA Literary Award for Nonfiction WinnerĪ 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.Computer Science & Information Technology.

Ebony and Ivy by Craig Steven Wilder