The Yale and Slavery Research Project: Student Perspectives

In October 2020, Yale President Peter Salovey announced the start of a research project charged with investigating Yale’s historic entanglements and associations with slavery, the slave trade, and abolition. This panel discussion will take place among and for Yale students, moderated by Professor David Blight, Chair of the Yale and Slavery Research Project. The program will touch on some initial findings but primarily is intended to provide student leaders and researchers an opportunity to reflect on this history and its meanings today in their lives at Yale. The panel is sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at the MacMillan Center at Yale, which is managing the Yale & Slavery Research Project. It is co-sponsored by Yale’s Afro-American Cultural Center.
Welcomes and introductions
Risë Nelson, Director, Afro-American Cultural Center and Assistant Dean, Yale College
Moderator
David Blight, Sterling Professor of History; Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at the MacMillan Center at Yale
Panelists
· Rebecca Amonor, YC 2021; Lead Student Coordinator, Black Church at Yale
· Kahlil Greene, YC 2021; Yale College Student Body President, 2019-2020
· Henry Jacob, YC 2021; Editor in Chief, The Yale Historical Review and a founder of the 1701 Project
· Matthew Quallen, Yale Law School 2021; Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service 2016, undergraduate researcher on Georgetown’s slaveholding past.
· Eden Senay, YC2022; Black Student Alliance at Yale Co-President
· Nina Todd, YC 2022; Black Student Alliance at Yale Co-President
Audience Q&A; discussion
Closing remarks
· David Blight
· Risë Nelson