Ebony and Ivy

Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities

By: Craig Steven Wilder

Narrated by: Corey Allen

A 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. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. 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.

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. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of North America, and they played a key role in white conquest. Later, the slave economy and higher education grew up together, each nurturing the other. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them.

Ebony 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.

©2013 Craig Steven Wilder (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

The Ivy League Schools owe Black people millions

This book should be taught as mandatory American History starting in 7th grade. This country was built on the backs of enslaved Black people stolen from Africa

Detailed chronicle of ed & Slavery's entwinement

Certainly dispels any myth of academia's (or white society's) distance from the horror of slavery.

great book!

Lots of important, unknown, forgotten history about slavery and academic institutions. Extensive research was done for this book, a must read.

Highly Recommend Reading

This book shows the connection between "IV league" schools and the development of racist ideology.

Great Book

Very good book. Very good book. Very good book. Very good book. Very good book. Very good book. Very good book. Yes, yes it is. What a book.