HLS Pledges $500k Gift to Royall House and Slave Quarters

BY JO B. LEMANN AND NEIL H. SHAH CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Harvard Law School announced a gift of $500,000 to the Royall House and Slave Quarters on Wednesday as part of a continued effort to recognize the University’s historical ties to slavery.

the Legacy of Slavery report in April 2022, which includes mentions of Isaac Royall Jr. and the Royall family’s connections to the University.

The report also acknowledged HLS professor Janet E. Halley’s research into Isaac Royall Jr. in 2008, which inspired students to advocate for the Law School’s seal to be changed.

community,” she said.

BY MADELEINE A. HUNG AND JOYCE E. KIM CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

Ushering in the Year of the Rabbit, student groups across campus celebrated Lunar New Year with plans of banquets and dinners in the near future.

This year, the Lunar New Year fell on Jan. 22 — the day before spring semester classes began.

Through their celebrations, affinity groups and some upperclassman houses hoped to bring the feeling of home to Harvard.

The Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association will host their annual Lunar New Year banquet next Friday, featuring performances from the Harvard Taekwondo Club, a traditional lion dance, and a multicourse family-style dinner.

Christy Zheng ’25, co-president of the Chinese Students Association, said she was “excited to bring everyone back together again.”

“Lunar New Year is just such an important holiday to the Asian community, and normally, we would be at home celebrating with our families,” she said. “But since we’re at college, we want- ed to create a space where people could come and celebrate with their friends and still have the big feast and performances that they might have at home.”

“Lunar New Year as a holiday is just the most important, and it’s a symbol of growth and renewal — just like the new year,” she added. “And so we wanted to make sure that there’s a space to celebrate that.”

Amy Huang ’24, another co-president of the Chinese Students Association, said it is important for students to celebrate with others during the Lunar New Year.

It’s kind of like Christmas in Taiwan – and everyone would go and visit their grandparents and eat together.

Henry Kuo 23 Co-President, Harvard Taiwanese Cultural Society

“I think it’s really important to a lot of people here — a lot of students — to be surrounded by that

Henry Kuo ’23, co-president of the Harvard Taiwanese Cultural Society, said the organization plans to hold a dinner gathering in the next few weeks to celebrate Lunar New Year.

“It’s to bring together people in a community,” Kuo said. “I think people bond through eating.”

Kuo described Lunar New Year in Taiwan as a time for families to get together and see relatives they have not visited in the past year.

“This is probably the only time when everyone is on holiday,” Kuo said. “It’s kind of like Christmas in Taiwan — and everyone would go and visit their grandparents and eat together, have fun together.”

“It’s more of a family gathering for us — for TCS,” he added.

On Thursday, the Harvard Vietnamese Association hosted a Vietnamese New Year celebration — Tet — in the Lowell House dining hall. The event featured traditional food, as well as music and games.

Anna G. Luong ’25 said she attended the event because she found it difficult being away from family for the New Year.

“I think — especially being away from home and being away from family — having a little bit of an experience of what at home would be called Tet with my peers is what really drew me to this event,” she said.

“Also, they have amazing Vietnamese food,” Luong added.

Luong said that her appreciation for Lunar New Year has deepened as she has grown older.

“In the past, I would have said, ‘Oh, it’s a means of getting some extra money throughout the year,’” she said. “But now that I’m older, it really symbolizes for me appreciating my family and being able to grow up a little bit — sit at the adults’ table and talk to them, let everyone know how I’m doing, and staying in touch.”

Ethan N. Phan ’25 — social chair of the Harvard Vietnamese Association — said he enjoys their events because they feel “a little bit like being at home.”

“I really miss home and I miss my family,” he said. “And going to the Vietnamese events really feels kind of comforting and reminds me of home. It makes Harvard feel more like a welcoming space.” madeleine.hung@thecrimson.com

The Royall House and Slave Quarters, a museum in Medford, Massachusetts, is located on the former plantation of the Royall family, which was the largest slaveholding family in the state. At least 60 enslaved people lived on the plantation, and their forced labor contributed to the Royall’s fortune.

Isaac Royall Jr. bequeathed an endowed professorship in 1781 that became Harvard’s first professorship of law and the forerunner of the Law School. In 2016, HLS retired its school seal — which contained the Royall family’s crest — due to its connections to slavery. The school unveiled a new seal in 2021 and permanently retired the Royall Professorship of Law last year.

According to the school’s press release, HLS and Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences aim to work with the Royall House and Slave Quarters on “future research and educational programming” and facilitate visits by Harvard affiliates to the site “for reflection, learning, and research.”

In recent years, Harvard has worked to study and confront the role slavery played in its rise to prominence. The University released its landmark Harvard and

Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82 said in the press release that the school has “grappled with the painful history” of its origins.

“Our work with the Royall House and Slave Quarters will help us continue together to acknowledge, learn from, and share with others our complicated history, to honor and commemorate the enslaved people whose labor generated wealth that contributed to the establishment of our law school, and to better understand and address the ongoing legacy of slavery in today’s society,” Manning said.

Kyera Singleton, the executive director of the Royall House and Slave Quarters, said in the release that she hopes the Law School’s donation to the museum will help educate more people about “how the legacies of slavery impact communities, particularly Black communities and communities of color, today.” jo.lemann@thecrimson.com neil.shah@thecrimson.com

“To understand contemporary society, we all must contend with the history of slavery and the institutions it founded and shaped in our own backyards,” Singleton said.