I knew slavery could have been part of our past. But still somehow Id hoped that the actual practice had never happened on our idyllic grounds.
Tuajuanda Jordan| Opinion contributor
With the debatesraging on critical race theory, the 1619 Project and the recent dismantling of Confederate memorials, we continue to grapple as a nation with how to remember our history. As a Black woman president of a predominately white institution, I wrestle with these questions every day. How should institutions mark a racist or violent past?
I am the president of St. Marys College of Maryland, a residential liberal arts institution and one of only two public honors colleges.As a college situated in far Southern Maryland, the history of St. Marys is intertwined with the history of slavery.
In 2017, the colleges most renowned archeologist and our schools archivist came to my office to let me, a Black woman, see and potentially touch a pair of slave shackles in pristine condition that a friend of the collegehad given us.
That gave me pause.Why would I want to hold slave shackles?The effect this simple act of offering me the opportunity to touch this artifact was lost on my colleagues and exemplifies the impact versus intent" conceptin diversity training. My colleagues meant no ill intent, but at the same time the fact that they were not even aware of how I might perceive the "opportunity weighed on me.
The archivist then told what he had discovered: In the 1840s the colleges steward listed six slaves, and he was trying to determine whether they belonged to the steward or to the college.Oy. I asked him to do whatever he could to find out for certain. I knew slavery could have been part of our past. But still somehow Id hoped that the actual practice of slavery had never happened on our idyllic grounds.
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Then the news came. It was confirmed that on the land where the college was preparing to build a new athletics complex there was evidence of slave quarters from two different centuries.
Eighteen months ago, George Floyd was murdered by police. Like Breonna Taylor and so many others before,and Adam Toledoand so many others after, white supremacy and the system took a life. Floyds murder penetrated my heart and filled me with a sense of hopelessness like Id never felt.
This moment, though, as we now know, also ignited a sustained and impassioned momentof protest and activism in our nations history. Much of this activism was focused on the police, in city streets and vigils nationwide. But a second wave of protest aimed at a different target: monuments to the confederacy.
From Richmond to Charleston, Princeton to Yale, a simple message resounded: Tear it down. A monument to an enslaver must not stand. And down they went over a hundredmonuments,signs,markers, memorials and homages to slavery, racism and racists are gone,from Jefferson Davis,to Woodrow Wilsons school at Princeton.
Finally, in September, with the wave of an arm from a construction worker, Robert E. Lee was hoisted off his pedestal, cut into pieces and shipped off to a warehouse.
But in their absence, what rises instead? How do we banish the enslavers but remember those who were enslaved, and lived in the shackles placed so proudly on my desk?
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The process of deciding what to do with the land on our campus was wrenching but also an opportunity. It provided impetus to think more deeply about history and to engage and educate students and our community. It was important to me that every time athletes, spectators, and visitors passed the site that housed enslaved people, it should give them pause and elicit an emotive response.
Last fall, with the wounds of 2020 and so much violence still fresh, we dedicated what ultimately became the Commemorative to Enslaved Peoples of Southern Maryland. Faced with a choice between removing artifacts or honoring the enslaved; between boxing up our history or confronting it head on, our community chose humanity and hope over anger, favoring a monument that would give voice to the enslaved bringing their story to the fore.
The commemorative is a life-sized replica of a slave cabin made from polished steel and wood with words cut into the steel. As you get closer to the building, the text reveals itself. The words are taken from original slave documents of the owners of the land.The wood acts like an artists pen to blacken out some of the words as is done with erasure poetry, a form of verse created by erasing words from the existing text, in this case written by slave owners, to form new prose. What emerges are the voices of the slaves who once lived on the land.
It is powerful work of art.Those who were once silenced, have found their voices, through the work of poetQuenton Baker. Here is an excerpt of his"We Are Only" poem, included on the memorial:
you took upresidence in the darkbay ferriedpassageto your brightdescendentsyour scarred shouldersyour burnt handscarved a countryfrom thisbreach
Students have returned, and Saturday our campus community will gather for a two mile processional across campus, A Sacred Journey to honor the enslaved and consecrate the commemorative. Poems will be read; a gospel choir will sing.
As we walk, I will be thinking about the murder of Floyd and the response it sparked,about the Ahmaud Aubrey trial in Georgia and about the monument that shines on our campus as a decision to give voice to the enslaved. And I will offer this lesson: It is only through our collective voices and actions not erasing history that we,as a nation, will be able to abolish racism.
Tuajuanda Jordan is the president of St. Marys College of Maryland.
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