Search Guides
Contextualization at University of Mississippi
UM Libraries resources on the contextualization of Ole Miss buildings, monuments and other campus locations. This is an opportunity to research and discuss these topics as part of a community of scholars.
Enslaved People
The Carriage House and an (assumed) domestic servant. Image from the UM Slavery Research Group page.
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University of Mississippi Slavery Research GroupFormed in 2014, the group seeks to recover, preserve, explore and understand the legacy of slavery at UM.
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2-Year Report and Proposal for Future Projects, Slavery Research Groupsee Appendix A: Antebellum UM collections and publications for library resources related to enslaved labor at the University of Mississippi.
In the News
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Historians on the Confederate Monument Debatearticles selected by the American Historical Association
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What Ole Miss Can Teach Universities About Grappling With Their Pastsby Timothy Ryback, Atlantic Magazine
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Ole Miss Edges Out of Its Confederate Shadow, Gingerlyby Stephanie Saul, New York Times
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The Statues—The history and creation of two Lafayette County monumentsby Andy Belt, Oxford Eagle
Related Topics
- The Lost Cause
- Daughters of the Confederacy
- Civil War Commemoration
- United Confederate Veterans
- Jim Crow
- White Supremacy
- Disenfranchisement of African Americans
- White Southern Nationalism
- Memorialization Studies
Contextualization at the University of Mississippi
The resources listed here provide an opportunity to research the contextualization of Ole Miss buildings, monuments and other campus locations. Debate about Confederate symbols on the UM campus has occurred since the 1970s, and the current initiative to contextualize local sites is part of a long-running dialogue. This is an opportunity to research and discuss these topics as part of a community of scholars. Archival assistance provided by Dr. Leigh McWhite.
Image: The only image of antebellum slavery at the University of Mississippi known to exist: an unnamed enslaved woman, standing behind the faculty residence of University of Mississippi Professor Edward C. Boynton, who took the photograph around 1860. Courtesy of the University of Mississippi Department of Archives and Special Collections.
University of Mississippi Contextualization Committee
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Letter from the Chancellor, August 22, 2017Letter which "emphatically condemns and rejects racism and bigotry" in response to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, and includes upcoming events and initiatives.
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Chancellor's Advisory Committee on History and ContextUM Contextualization home page. This page is currently titled "Learn From the Past, Lead Into the Future" and has the history of our contextualization process including links to the 2014 & 2016 action plans, letters from the Chancellor, and the committee charge.
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Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on History and Context Final ReportThe final report submitted by the members of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on History and Context to University of Mississippi Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter.
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Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on History and Context MembershipCACHC Committee Members
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History & Context at UMCreated by the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History, this site includes links to: a) the comprehensive report authored by history faculty on the Confederate Monument on campus; b) the history faculty’s unanimous call for revisions to the original plaque placed in front of the Confederate Monument on campus; and c) a timeline of contextualization efforts of important dates in the contextualization of the Confederate Monument on campus.
Contextualization at Other Academic Institutions
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Yale Committee to Establish Principles on RenamingIncludes a link to the report "Letter of the Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming". The purpose of the committee was to articulate a set of principles that can guide Yale in decisions about whether to remove a historical name from a building or other prominent structure or space on campus —principles that are enduring rather than specific to particular controversies.
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Slavery & Justice, Brown UniversityIn 2003, President Ruth Simmons appointed a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice (SCSJ) to explore Brown’s historical relationship to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade.
In Ebony and Ivy, by Mr. Wilder, cites this ad for the sale of slaves by a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania; from Pennsylvania Gazette.
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The Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown UniversityThe Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice (CSSJ) is a scholarly research center with a public humanities mission. Recognizing that racial and chattel slavery were central to the historical formation of the Americas and the modern world, the CSSJ creates a space for the interdisciplinary study of the historical forms of slavery while also examining how these legacies shape our contemporary world.
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President’s Commission on Slavery and the University at the University of VirginiaCharge: provide Advice and Recommendations to the President on the commemoration of the University of Virginia’s historical relationship with slavery and enslaved people; explore and report on UVA’s historical relationship with slavery, highlighting opportunities for recognition and commemoration
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Woodrow Wilson Legacy Review Commission at Princeton UniversityThe Board of Trustees appointed a special committee to consider Woodrow Wilson's legacy at Princeton, and, more specifically, whether changes should be made in how the University recognizes Wilson's legacy. The board in April adopted the committee's report and recommendations, calling for an expanded and more vigorous commitment to diversity and inclusion at Princeton.
Contextualization Movement History
Craig Steven Wilder, the author of Ebony & Ivy, started the national discussion about enslaved people and higher education. Wilder is a professor of American history at MIT and formally Dartmouth.
Ebony & Ivy was part of faculty reading group that went on to become our campuses' Slavery Research Group (UMSRG).
Read more about Wilder in this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, published in March 2017.
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Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities
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Historian Wilder examines the emergence of American higher education from approximately the early 1600s to the mid-1840s. Among the book's many contributions, it frames America's earliest colleges as agents of Native conquest and assimilation as well as beneficiaries of the wealth created by the African slave trade. Most notably, Wilder illuminates how Harvard, America's oldest and most prestigious higher education institution, initially languished but flourished after it began to actively recruit and cater to the sons of the South's slaveholding elite. It is common knowledge that US universities were racially segregated until the late 20th century. However, Wilder reveals that enslaved blacks had a substantial presence on Colonial and antebellum college campuses as personal attendants for students, staff, and administrators. Wilder shows not only that the earliest colleges in the US benefited from uncompensated slave labor, but also how they bolstered slavery by advancing theories of black inferiority that would later become known as scientific racism.
