Close the college, sell the land and pay reparations, problem solved.
Salem Academy and College apologized Thursday for its role in slavery, saying the college owned slaves who worked on campus as housekeepers and in other roles.
The college is the first locally to apologize for its role in slavery and one of only a handful nationally, including Georgetown University and the College of William and Mary.
A research report released Thursday found that between 1810 and 1840, Salem Academy and College on Church Street owned and leased enslaved people.
“Salem apologizes with profound remorse for the use of enslaved labor at the school,” said Lorraine Sterritt, president of the academy and college. “Understanding our history is critical to understanding our present and guiding us as we look to the future and seek healing.”
Salem is the oldest educational institution for girls and women in the United States and was founded in 1772 — four years before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
The school commissioned Grant McAllister, an associate professor with Wake Forest University’s Department of German and Russian, to conduct research on the prevalence of slaves in Salem’s history.
“In regard to slave labor, indisputable evidence illustrated that the boarding school first owned and then later leased slaves beginning around 1810,” McAllister’s 13-page report reads. “It appears a slave was owned, primarily for work in the laundry.”
McAllister’s goal was to establish evidence of either free or slave African American enrollment in the school from 1772 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, he said. He reviewed literature for the time period, some of which he translated from German.
Evidence showed slaves worked in housekeeping.
The practice continued and is recorded in the ledgers until 1840, during which time unnamed “individuals were paid a daily wage,” he said.