Slavery, Colonialism & their Legacies

The Shenley Four • Herbert Barrow • Theodore Carter • Lucien Ayers • Jester Hairston • February 10, 1929

Class of 1927 in front of Barnum Hall • Jackson College • March 5, 1927

Tufts Graduate poses with his family • circa 1977

Black Students lead a protest march across campus • #TheThreePercent Movement • 2015

West Medford from the Rez • 1875

The Slavery, Colonialism, and their Legacies at Tufts University (SCL) initiative will illuminate the history of slavery and colonialism within and beyond Tufts, shaping the future of how universities study their institutional pasts.

Through original, interdisciplinary research, public programming, and community partnerships, SCL will examine:

The university’s historical ties to racial slavery, the slave trade, and colonialism in Massachusetts and across the Atlantic world.
The historic Black and Afro-Native communities of Charlestown, Medford, Somerville, Boston, and Grafton.
The Universalist religious tradition upon which Tufts was founded, and the tradition’s relationship to slavery, anti-slavery, and social movements.
The long presence of African-descended and indigenous students on Tufts’ campus

HIGH RES Parents' Weekend reception in the Alumnae Lounge, including a performance by the a capella group Essence.jpg

Project Partners

Center for The Humanities at Tufts
Center for the Study of Race and Democracy
Tufts Archival Research Center
Office of the Provost

Launched in 2023, the seeds of the project were first planted by Gerald Gill, beloved Professor of African American history at Tufts from 1980-2007, whose efforts to collect and document the experiences of early students and faculty of color at Tufts led to the first Another Light on the Hill exhibit, staged in 1988.

Over the last seven years, in conjunction with the Tufts Archival Research Center and the Tufts DataLab, Professors Kendra Field and Kerri Greenidge built the African American Trail Project at Tufts (AATP), mapping African American and Afro-Native public history sites within the Tufts campus and across greater Boston and Massachusetts. The AATP aims to develop African American historical memory and intergenerational community, placing present-day struggles for racial justice in the context of greater Boston’s historic African American, Black Native, and diasporic communities.

Over the next several years, the SCL project will expand these initiatives through scholarly research involving collaborators from across the university, with renewed focus on Tufts’ institutional history. The project will also further connections with community partners such as the Royall House & Slave Quarters, the Medford Historical Society & Museum, the Robbins House, and others.