KarunaNews Story

Harvard University is setting aside $100 million for an endowment fund, and considering recommendations to close educational, social, and economic gaps left by slavery and racism. The Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery's report showed that the university benefited from the slave trade after Massachusetts outlawed slavery in 1783 -- 147 years after Harvard was founded. Its recommendations included funding summer programs to bring students and faculty from historically Black colleges and universities to Harvard. "It's a step in the right direction," said real estate developer Dennis Lloyd, 74, who traces his lineage to a woman enslaved by the Royall family, which made its fortune in the slave trade and whose bequest established Harvard Law School in 1817.