"Over the past few years, members of our community involved in the Penn & Slavery Project have done important research that has helped the University better understand its early history, and we are grateful for their work. It is important that we fully understand how the institution of slavery—a profoundly shameful and deeply tragic part of American history—affected Penn in its early years and that we reflect as a university about the current meaning of this history. Penn recognizes that some of its trustees, including our founder Benjamin Franklin, had owned enslaved persons. Importantly, Franklin changed course in his life and went on to become a leading abolitionist."
© 2024 The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania