Visitors to the Rutgers New Brunswick campus this spring will find historical markers at four new locations informing them about prominent university figures who made their fortunes through the slave economy.
The measure, announced Tuesday, is part of a larger effort by the university at a time when higher education institutions across the nation are trying to reckon with their role in America s legacy of slavery and racial injustice.
“These markers are an invitation for us to talk about the complicated legacies of namesakes and the complicated ways in which blood money from slavery is woven into old institutions like Rutgers,” Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said at the board of governors meeting Tuesday.
New Rutgers historical markers will tell the dark side of university’s history
Updated Feb 23, 2021;
For more than half a century, Rutgers University students have unknowingly lived in a residence hall named after a man who owned slaves.
But soon, anyone who enters Hardenbergh Hall will be greeted by a historical marker explaining that Jacob Rusten Hardenbergh was more than just the university’s first president.
Rutgers announced its latest effort Tuesday to confront its ties to slavery and racial injustice: Four new historical markers that detail how the families of the university’s early benefactors made their fortunes through the slave economy.