Ebony and Ivy

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

By: Craig Steven Wilder

Narrated by: Corey Allen

Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

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

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.

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.

Something most weren't aware of

Great documentation about Ivy league & it's slave trade for North American white national domination and is a great part two to "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism" by Edward Baptist"

Solid scholarship. Dreadful reading

It was very hard to get through this book because the reading was so very poor. Almost undermined the content. Too bad.

A necessary history lesson.

Understanding today's societal ills requires knowledge of the past.
I will share this book with my siblings, adult children and adult niece.

Must read -- Foundations of Higher Education

I love this book BUT it is hard to read. Hard to read because Dr. Weber speaks the truth. It's Americas ugly history but it needs to be told. All history books need to include Dr. Webers documented history. It is our history.

Compelling historical account

Compelling historical account of the role of slavery in the ivy league colleges and universities. The reader/listener should note, though, that book is not a telling but a reporting--all too often with detailed documentation of facts but little in the way of analysis. For me, the story was, therefore, very dry and factual. I found the narration to be slow and pedantic, too, but when I changed the narration speed to 1.1 x, the narrator was easier to follow. A must-read for anyone serving in academia.