Letter to the Editor: Remember Royall's Slaves

To the editor:

I hope the Harvard Corporation will take a deep breath before it deliberates on the recommendation to change the HLS shield because of its connection to the Royall family and slavery. I hope the Corporation remains true to Harvard’s commitment to honesty and wisdom—veritas indeed. The urge to airbrush uncomfortable facts from history is dangerous. Yale might have a real problem with the naming of Calhoun College, but the Royall family contribution looks quite different.

Getting rid of the Royall family crest seems too much like wanting to hide from our connection with slavery. Today’s debate about and greater awareness of Harvard’s connection to slavery is all very beneficial, but, ironically, it would not even be happening if the Royall family emblem had not been chosen for the HLS shield in 1936. No, better to have it out in the open to remind us all on a daily basis. If we really must repudiate what Royall did, then we should find a descendant of the Royall family and give them back their tainted money, with interest, and insist that they set up a foundation for social and economic justice.

But, really, what is the Royall family legacy? Today, we interpret it very differently. Of course part of it is the evil, the crime of slavery—that Royall stole the lives of his slaves and stole the wealth of their labors. But the past is past. Is it not realistic to say that the law school is not Royall’s legacy, but is rather the slaves’ legacy, thanks to the wealth they created? What better way to be reminded of this, and to acknowledge the conundrum of history, than to look at the HLS shield and always know that it was really the slaves who made the gift, not Royall. If we could go back in time, it is they we would thank.

Further, what makes the shield an especially appropriate reminder is that the Royall crest displays three sheaves of harvested grain. Well. We know who toiled in the fields, and who did the planting, and who did the cultivating, and who did the harvesting, and who bound those sheaves. Truly, that emblem doesn’t even belong to the Royall family, it represents the slaves.

If 18th century slaveholders saw the world today, many would say it has been turned on its head. So, perhaps a solution is to keep the Royall elements in the HLS shield, but to turn the three sheaves upside down, as if they were drying. This way we make a statement today about Royall’s slavery, and at the same time we have a constant reminder that Harvard must thank the slaves for the bounty created by their labors. If we cannot see our way clear to think this way, then we are hypocrites until we give the money back.

Lars Peterson '68 lives in Washington, D.C.