Tim Tai, Senior Photographer

On Friday, Yale University Press released “Yale and Slavery: A History,” a book in which Sterling Professor of History and Pulitzer-Prize winning author David Blight traces Yale’s long and complex involvement in slavery, racism and abolition.

In the foreword of the book, University President Peter Salovey wrote that he asked Blight to lead a team research initiative exploring Yale’s history of slavery. He wrote that Blight readily accepted the task, choosing to expand the initial proposal of a scholarly report into a more accessible narrative for a broader readership.

Michael Morand ’87 ’93 MDiv, director of community engagement at the Beinecke Rare Book Library and a researcher and chapter author for “Yale and Slavery,” wrote to the News that he worked in close collaboration with Blight on the book.

“As an alum, a Yale leader, and a New Haven resident, I know our university and community only grow stronger if we are honest about our history,” Morand wrote. “I am proud to be part of a university willing to rigorously shine light on truth.”

The Yale and Slavery Research Project began in late 2020 as a commitment to better understand Yale’s formative ties to slavery and racism — as well as the ongoing repercussions of that history. Last Friday, Yale issued a formal apology statement addressing the project’s research findings and listing next steps the institution plans to take. The book is one component of this larger initiative, which also includes a lecture series in fall 2024 and updates to campus tours.

“Yale and Slavery,” which is divided into 12 chapters with five interludes and an epilogue, stretches across centuries of history. The book draws on a wide range of archives and other texts in an effort to remain specific and resonant to Yale while also relevant and applicable nationwide.

“I was determined to not write a conventional report but to write a real history that ordinary people could and would read,” Blight wrote to the News.

Blight wrote that after the project was launched, webinars and a major conference followed. The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, which Blight directs, was central to the project’s management.

Morand wrote that the Beinecke Library Community Engagement program also managed much of the Yale and Slavery Research project, with more than 20 online programs over the past three years. These programs included a 2022 documentary film on the 1831 Black College proposal and the “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, and Slavery” exhibit at the New Haven Museum.

Hope McGrath, the Beinecke research coordinator for Yale, New Haven and Connecticut history, has served as the project’s lead researcher since she joined in Jan. 2022. Along with organizing a team of researchers and conducting primary and secondary research, she authored two chapters and three interludes in the book.

She wrote to the News that one of the project’s major challenges was finding a way to tell the many stories of Yale’s historical involvement with slavery, the slave trade and abolition in a coherent narrative.

“We were always asking ourselves, what are the through-lines of this story? What are the key themes and tensions that run through over 300 years of Yale history?” McGrath wrote.

She wrote that though the book is over 400 pages, she thinks it is told in a way that will leave readers with a clear perspective about how Yale’s history with slavery has unfolded.

Blight echoed the difficulties of condensing centuries of stories into one readable history.

“The many challenges in writing this book came from the mountains of material and evidence and the tasks of converting it into a narrative history that moved over nearly 250 years,” Blight wrote.

In his acknowledgements, Blight named many student researchers, Beinecke archivists, Yale professors and other community members who played important roles in the making of “Yale and Slavery.” Ultimately, he and Morand both credited Salovey for providing the initial impetus for the book and the broader Yale and Slavery Research Project.

Salovey told the News about his experiences with the University’s archives and primary sources he encountered that told a troubling story.

“I saw for the first time the invoices reflecting payments or requesting payments from the University to those who had enslaved people that they owned whose labor built Connecticut Hall,” Salovey said. “You were looking at wages not paid to the people who worked on that building but paid to somebody else for the people who worked on that building — who received nothing for working on that building.”

Although the idea for the project came from Salovey, Blight told the News he was given free rein to decide how he would conduct his research and write the book.

Blight said Salovey and his office did not attempt to censor his project, and although the timeline was somewhat controlled, the book’s content was not.

“The only rules were the rules of scholarship,” he told the News.

McGrath wrote to the News that she hopes the scholarship in “Yale and Slavery” will inform and enact change in the Yale community.

“By providing historical context, we can better understand why early Yale was funded by profits from human trafficking, or how Yale ended up naming a residential college for John C. Calhoun in the 20th century, to give just two examples,” she wrote.

Looking forward, Blight wrote that there will be follow-up measures and responses to “Yale and Slavery” around the Yale campus and in the surrounding New Haven community.

He noted that one of the most important of these efforts is to use their findings to help New Haven’s public schools.

“Our book and the exhibition are important steps in ongoing reckoning with history,” Morand wrote to the News. “I hope students and community residents will engage this history and seek to learn more.”

The book, which is currently a number one Amazon New Release in Higher & Continuing Education, is currently for sale as a hardcover for $35 and also available online.