Harvard Crimson writer Tyler J. H. Ory covers the third event in the HDS series of public online conversations titled “Religion and Legacies of Slavery,” which aims to build on Harvard’s landmark Legacy of Slavery report released in April 2022. The event, “Harvard Divinity School and Slavery: Family Stories,” featured HDS senior lecturer Dan P. McKanan, and was hosted by Diane L. Moore, faculty director of Religion and Public Life; and Melissa Wood Bartholomew, associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
McKanan outlined how the Legacy of Slavery report revealed HDS’ deep entanglement with slavery.
He discussed three individuals with ties to HDS who came from families with fortunes derived from enslavement — William E. Channing, class of 1798, a prominent Unitarian preacher who McKanan called the “visionary behind the founding” of HDS; Thomas W. Higginson, class of 1841, a minister, abolitionist, and HDS graduate; and John G. Palfrey, class of 1815, the first dean of HDS.
“It’s easy to assume that slavery was a relatively distant reality for the Divinity School’s founders and early students,” McKanan said. “The truth revealed by the report is that the founders of the Divinity School — many of them — were much more entangled with enslavement than most New Englanders of their generation.”
McKanan spoke about how Channing, Higginson, and Palfrey grappled with the “moral injury” of inheriting wealth from enslavement.
Read the full piece on the Harvard Crimson.