And out of old books, in good faith,
Comes all this new knowledge that people learn.
It was not from an “old” book that we learned of Harvard Law School’s connection to the institution of African chattel slavery, but from Daniel R. Coquillette and Bruce A. Kimball’s On the Battlefield of Merit: Harvard Law School, The First Century (2015). Coquillette and Kimball gathered and analyzed old documents to reveal to the Harvard Law School community – and the world – a central truth about our past that we should never forget: Harvard Law School has its origins in the labor of the enslaved. Now that the visual association with the Royall Plantation and its forced laborers is gone, the central question remains. What are we to do with this “new knowledge”? There can be, and will be, many answers over the course of the Law School’s unfolding future; as students, staff, administrators, and professors use their creativity to realize the goal of keeping justice – denied to our unwitting progenitors – at the forefront of their endeavors. Whatever reforms and adjustments are made to improve the quality of legal education and life at the Law School, every generation of HLS students should be reminded of their connection to the unnamed people who labored for the Royall family, and never forget them. With this act of memory, the new knowledge we have gained will connect the past, present, and future.
- Annette Gordon-Reed, Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History, Harvard Law School; Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Professor of History, Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Harvard University