Brown & Slavery & Justice

Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

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Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

Brown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice has become a global leader for research that is changing the way the world learns about legacies of slavery and the slave trade.

Speaker at the From Slave Ships to Black Lives Matter conference — CSSJ faculty, staff and student research and initiatives inform high-impact historical exhibitions, major film documentary projects and challenging curricula for high school students.

Founded in 2012, the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown is a hub of dynamic research on historical racial slavery and how its legacy shapes the contemporary world.

The center was established after a direct recommendation of the Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, which called on the University to “undertake a major research and teaching initiative on slavery and justice.” The CSSJ has already become internationally recognized for its scholarship and engagement.

A rich collection of CSSJ research clusters, led by faculty, staff and students, confronts such disparate problems as human trafficking, mass incarceration in the United States and racial bias in medicine. Faculty, staff and student research and initiatives inform high-impact historical exhibitions, major film documentary projects and challenging curricula for high school students. And, the Center’s Global Curatorial Project regularly convenes influential slavery and justice scholars, curators and educators from across the globe.

Visit the CSSJ Online

While this page introduces content from the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, follow the links to visit the CSSJ's website and learn more about the center's history, work and featured projects.

History of the CSSJ

The CSSJ has positioned itself both within the intellectual landscape of Brown and also in relation to the few other centers devoted to the study of slavery that exist around the world.

The CSSJ's Work

The center’s work comprises a set of research clusters, projects, seminars and public engagement initiatives that propel new perspectives on historical slavery.

Featured CSSJ Projects

Global Curatorial Project

An exhibition and curatorial project, jointly led by the CSSJ and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, explores the global interconnectedness of the transatlantic slave trade and illuminates an alternative view of the history of global modernity.

Historical Injustice and Democracy

A research cluster led jointly by the CSSJ and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs confronts how the historical injustices of colonialism and racial slavery were instrumental in the making of the modern world.

Unfinished Conversations

The CSSJ and Brown’s John Hay Library are working with scholars and museums across the globe to create the world’s largest collection of oral histories on racial slavery and colonialism.

Race, Slavery, Colonialism and Capitalism

A research cluster co-led by the CSSJ and the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam explores the way that race, racial slavery and colonialism have shaped global capitalism, changing scholars’ understanding of world history and development.

News About the CSSJ

February 2, 2021 News from Brown

$4.9 million grant project to interrogate legacy of colonialism, subjugation in New England

Brown University, Williams College and the Mystic Seaport Museum scholars will use maritime history as a basis for studying the relationship between European colonization, dispossession of Native American land and racial slavery.

January 10, 2019 News from Brown

For Brown’s slavery and justice center, a legacy of scholarship at the five-year mark

Launched after Brown’s landmark Slavery and Justice report, the center is a powerhouse for research that is changing the way the world learns about legacies of slavery and the global slave trade.

December 3, 2019 News from Brown

Students uncover uncharted histories of the slave trade for upcoming documentary series

On the 400th anniversary of the start of slave trade in the British American colonies, students and faculty at Brown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice are engaging in research for a PBS miniseries directed by renowned documentarian Stanley Nelson, hosting a two-day symposium on the lasting effects of slavery and more.

December 2, 2016 News from Brown

A decade after Brown’s historic report, scholars convene to discuss slavery and public history

Ruth J. Simmons, the University’s president emerita, told a group of pioneering public historians in her keynote address that excellence is built on truth-telling, not lies and secrets.

Dedicated: Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice

Faculty, students, alumni, staff, and President Emerita Ruth Simmons gathered Friday, Oct. 24, 2014, to dedicate the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and visit its new home at 94 Waterman Street.

Questions for B. Anthony Bogues

Created on recommendation of the 2006 Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, the new Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice will expand upon the work of that committee, creating a space for student and faculty research and public discussion of the history and legacies of these issues. Here, inaugural director B. Anthony Bogues shares his vision for the Center.

Bogues to direct Slavery and Justice Center

B. Anthony Bogues, the Harmon Family Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, has been named inaugural director of the University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Creation of the center was among the recommendations made in the Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice.