(Video below),..Joyce Barber is the keeper of her family history. She didn't know that Harvard university is part of that history, or that she's identified in its confidential database tracking the descendants of people enslaved by the University.
In May, Harvard released a spreadsheet with the names of 1,613 people enslaved by Harvard officials, but no information about descendants.
When the Harvard's Legacy of Slavery Initiative launched in 2022, a core promise was that it would find the direct descendants and try, somehow, to help them. But four years on, it hasn't contacted them. Sounds like Harvard does not want the descendants to know.
Following the effective abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783, "Tuttleville" developed into a small, self-sustaining community composed of free Black and Native American working families. It stood alongside other notable historic South Shore Black enclaves like Parting Ways in Kingston and Caffrey Hill in Norwell, Massachussetts.
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