Harvard Crimson writers Julian J. Giordano and Nicole Y. Lu cover the fifth 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, “Slavers and Slavery: A Dialogue with Descendants,” featured HDS professor of Africana Religious Studies Tracey E. Hucks, who moderated a discussion on reparations and the legacy of slavery with Dain Perry, a descendant of the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history, and Constance R. Perry, whose ancestors were enslaved. The event was hosted by Diane L. Moore, faculty director of Religion and Public Life; and Melissa Wood Bartholomew, associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
Constance Perry, who is descended from enslaved people in North Carolina, said she believes she and her husband Dain Perry were “brought together to do exactly what we’re doing. . . . I think our stories hopefully will help people to see that we can, in fact, have conversation,” Constance Perry said. “And that we’re able to do this work together.”
The Perrys have toured the country for more than 500 screenings of the 2008 documentary “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” produced by Dain Perry’s cousin, Katrina Browne. The documentary follows Browne, Dain Perry, and other descendants of the DeWolf family as they travel from Rhode Island to Ghana and then to Cuba to reckon with their ancestors’ role in enslavement. The DeWolf family brought more than 10,000 enslaved Africans to the Americas and continued to hold investments in slavery through plantations in the Caribbean even after the abolishment of slavery in the Northern states.
During the event, the Perrys, who are members of the Episcopal Church, also discussed the importance of faith to their work. A member of the Diocese of Massachusetts Racial Justice Commission, Constance Perry co-chaired a subcommittee that proposed a resolution calling for a reparations fund and the full disclosure of the church’s history related to slavery. The resolution passed almost unanimously in 2020.
Read the full piece on the Harvard Crimson.