Board of Trustees resolution regarding slavery

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WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY BOARD OF TRUSTEES

RESOLUTION APOLOGIZING FOR THE UNIVERSITY’S PARTICIPATION IN THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY

WHEREAS, Wake Forest University was founded as Wake Forest Institute in Eastern North Carolina on the former Calvin Jones plantation in 1834; shortly thereafter it was renamed Wake Forest College; and

WHEREAS, the first president, Samuel Wait, and all of the antebellum presidents owned enslaved people, and many early trustees were slaveholders; and

WHEREAS, enslaved people helped build and maintain Wake Forest College; and

WHEREAS, the University knows that at least 16 enslaved individuals were bequeathed in estates to Wake Forest College, all of whom were then sold to benefit the institution.; and

WHEREAS, in these respects and others, Wake Forest University was a full participant in the slave economy of the mid-1800s, thereby falling far short of its aspiration to serve all of humanity; and

WHEREAS, when Wake Forest College moved to Winston-Salem in 1956 the assets it had accumulated were used to establish the institution in its new home; thus the benefits derived from slavery continue to sustain the University to this day; and

WHEREAS, on February 20, 2020, at Founders’ Day Convocation, with the full support and assent of the Board of Trustees, President Nathan O. Hatch, on behalf of Wake Forest University, formally and unequivocally apologized for participating in and benefiting from the institution of slavery; and

WHEREAS, the Board of Trustees believes that it is important that it, as the governing body of Wake Forest University, makes its own unequivocal apology; it is, therefore

RESOLVED, that the Wake Forest University Board of Trustees apologizes for the
exploitation and use of enslaved people – those both known and unknown –
who helped create and who served the University through no choice of their
own, and hereby recommits to acknowledging past wrongs in order to pursue
healing so that we may live up to the University’s core value of Pro Humanitate;

AND FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Wake Forest University Board of Trustees
acknowledges that a true apology requires action and meaningful changes; that
the Board hereby recommits to understanding more fully the injustices of the
past and present and pledges to work together with the Wake Forest
community to address them.

The foregoing resolution was adopted by the Wake Forest University Board of Trustees on April 24, 2020.

Signed by: