Davidson College: Using Power to Portray History
Lincoln Hayes
Dr. Ewington
HUM 104
20 February 2024
Pledged
The report to President Carol Quillen from the Commission on Race and Slavery is an attempt at a comprehensive reconciliation with Davidson College’s relationship with slavery and has since been put into greater context with further research. The report was published by the colleges Commission on Race and Slavery on August 19, 2020 and can be found on the college website. The report outlines the chronology of Davidson’s relationship with Slavery, Segregation and student activism. It is a crucial aspect of Davidson’s moving forward towards reconciliation, but it lacks important information that has recently been uncovered. This paper will cover the relationship between the report and other works the college has presented on the subject.
Using information from the secondary sources, the report can be compared in terms of its ability to effectively contextualize the College’s relationship with slavery. The three secondary sources include a YouTube video from the college about history Davidson’s ties to slavery with a specific focus on the Chambers building name, a scholarly article from Dr. Green, a professor in the Africana studies department, and a text from Michel-Rolph Trouillot covering history as a concept. The report can be used to contradict other portrayals of the college as well as itself being further contextualized.
The Report to President Carol Quillen contradicts the YouTube video entitled Davidson College’s Painful History and a Path Forward. The report directly states that “the Commission does believe that the college should rename the Chambers building”, which is miss-represented in Doug Hick’s portrayal of the Commission conclusion.[1] Hick’s claims that “many of the commission members … thought that the straightforward answer would be to remove the name of Chambers…things got much more complicated”.[2] The implication of things being more complicated than simply changing the name entirely neglects the Commission’s clear belief renaming the Chambers building. If Hicks were representing the recommendations of the commission, he would not imply that the complexity that he mentions means that the name shouldn’t be changed. Anthony Foxx’s remarks in the video are also contradictory because of his direct contribution to the report as Chair of the Commission on Race and Slavery. His comments such as “now that we know what we know…what does it change” are incredibly contradictory to his own commission’s report directly claiming its belief in Changing the name.[3] This related to the Trouillot reading where he wrote “peoples…define the very terms under which some situations can be described”.[4] In this way, the college is presenting its own history in different fashions depending on the context.
Dr. Green’s journal adds nuance and context through further exploring the colleges relation with slavery in much more depth than the report, especially in terms of looking at the history of those affected by the institution of slavery. The report was released in 2020 whereas Dr. Green’s article came out in 2023, during which time Dr. Green did extensive research into the topic. Green’s exploration into Maxwell Chambers strong ties to the early history and development of the college paints a grimmer picture than the report. While the report uses weak language like “Evidence suggests that Chambers … engaged in the slave trade”, Green fully exposes the college’s relationship to slavery through talking about their experiences.[5] Green’s approach from her scholarly point of view, focus more on the history of those enslaved by the college considerably more than the report. Green’s paper points out how “Davidson College has had little interaction with manumitted individuals and their descendants, including those who use the Chambers surname”, which is reflected in the report which only acknowledge the descendants twice.[6] Both the report and Dr. Green’s article call for further research and exploration into the colleges history but considering the difference in the approach to researching and presenting the topic, the commissions findings will likely be more focused on the outward portrayal of the college’s history rather than the full picture. This can be seen when Dr. Green wrote, “They want acknowledgement. They want meaningful inclusion in campus narratives about the building’s namesake and any updates made in how that is presented”, where she is taking into account the descendants inclusion on the history of the college.[7] The college is looking to make amends and move forward and present themselves as reconciling while scholars like Dr. Green’s do more to actually do the work they both claim to be doing. The language the report uses seems to categorize the people who suffered under the college as something to be cast aside as a unwanted part of the college’s history whereas Dr. Green is centering her narrative around the stories of those who’s history has been unexamined and is crucial to understanding the full history of the college.
It is crucial to grasp that most of the history surround the topic of slavery at Davidson College that will be seen and reported on is through the lens of the college itself. In a sense, this makes the college the ‘winner’ of its own narrative. It has controlled the lives of other human beings, while neglecting their history and that of their descendants and has ended up with power and wealth. The college has the power to tell its own story, while the descendants and those who were enslaved by the college must grapple with some aspects of their history which cannot be recovered. That is why work done by scholars like Dr. Green is crucial to being able to reconcile with the past. Trouillot writes “Power does not enter the story once and for all, but at different times and from different angles. It precedes the narrative proper, contributes to its creation and to its interpretation”.[8] Green’s work brings power to those who have not had a voice or the ability to tell their own history. Working towards empowering these voices gives precedence to the full narrative rather than an institutions portrayal of it.
Bibliography
Commission on Race and Slavery. “Report to President Carol Quillen.” Davidson College. August 18, 2020.
Commission-on-Race-and-Slavery-Report-2020_0 (1).pdf
Davidson College. “Davidson College’s Painful History and a Painful Path Forward.” YouTube Video. 9:30. Nov 7, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPm1Yzzjg1E.
Green, Sharon. 2023. “Maxwell Chambers and Davidson College.” Accessed February 19, 2024. 3-10
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OVtbzpFBGa43WHL0aXKUhdkazcMJoQ_1/view?usp=embed_facebook.
Michel-Rolph, Trouillot, “The Power in the Story: Power and the Production of History,” in Silencing the Past (Beacon Press (MA), 1995).
https://drive.google.com/file/u/0/d/1EGgFPSWYSOiuNDleBHZc8TetGKFQBnlY/view?usp=embed_facebook.
[1] Commission on Race and Slavery, “Report to President Carol Quillen.” 9
[2] Davidson College, “Davidson College’s Painful History and a Path Forward”, 5:20
[3] Davidson College, “Davidson College’s Painful History and a Path Forward”, 5:52
[4] Trioullot, “The Power in the Story: Power and the Production of History.” 23
[5] Commission on Race and Slavery, “Report to President Carol Quillen.” 2
[6] Green, “Maxwell Chambers and Davidson College.” 7
[7] Green, “Maxwell Chambers and Davidson College.” 7
[8] Trioullot, “The Power in the Story: Power and the Production of History.” 28-29
