Inconsiderate/InConsideration

My exhibit Inconsiderate/InConsideration is a reflection on the ways in which Harvard and its students have considered their role in the slave trade and the feelings of Black people, while simultaneously committing wrong. 

The first item that I would use are the daguerreotypes that were discovered in the basement of the Harvard University museum. In this photograph there are, from left to right, “a Congo slave named Renty, who lived on B.F. Taylor’s plantation, ‘Edgehill’; Jack, a slave from the Guinea Coast (ritual scars decorate his cheek); and an unidentified man.” 

Source: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/harvard-can-keep-slave-daguerrotypes-1949591

I would also include this relic from the Harvard Debating Club in 1792, who debated whether French slaves in the West Indies should be emancipated. These gentlemen probably thought that their own relationship to slavery was resolved, given that slavery was ended officially in Massachusetts in 1783. But to debate something necessitates that both sides be arguable, contradicting the assertion that all men are equal by fact of nature.

Source: Records of the Debating Club of Resident Graduates, 1792-1793. HUD 3320.505

I would also include this picture of Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett, the first African American instructor at Harvard, who was hired prior to his emancipation. From 1859 to 1871 he served as the director of the Harvard College Gymnasium. What does it mean to hire someone before considering recognition of their humanity?

Source: Photograph circa 1860. HUP Hewlett, A. Molyneaux (3a)