Creating a New Legacy

This article was written by Marian Baker and originally published on September 25, 2017.

The past is an awkward thing. Naturally, we want to be able to look at our forebears and say that they were all-around good people who worked tirelessly for the common good, espoused egalitarian ideals, and defined new legacies. However, the past is never so cut-and-dry. Human history is just that – human – and no human is perfect. Oftentimes, the same people we place on pedestals for creating our most beloved institutions also worked to perpetuate institutions that we no longer tolerate: slavery, for instance.

But what are you to do in those cases? Yes, our founders created the university we know and love today. But they also did so on the backs of those held in bondage.

For me, the work of this Task Force is about reconciling the past of our institution with its future. The United States, and indeed every nation that once granted slavery legal status, still suffers from the wounds that slavery inflicted upon us as a society. That’s right: we have not yet healed. There is still a racial divide that impacts us all, no matter our color. And the past will continue to influence us until we take a firm hold of that past and define a new legacy. Let us recognize its transgressions, reconcile what we can reconcile, and use those lessons to inform our future.