Chloe Rhee ’24 presented the final CaMD Scholar presentation of 2023-2024.
On Friday, Chloe Rhee ’24 delivered her Community and Multicultural Development (CaMD) Scholar presentation, “Knowledge without Goodness? The 1835 Anti-Slavery Rebellion at Andover,” marking the conclusion of the CaMD Scholar presentations for the 2023-2024 academic year. Rhee’s presentation examined the vision of the students who protested the racial injustice in Andover’s administration during the early 19th century, unpacking the impact of social construct on the Andover community from the emancipation period to the present.
Referencing both national and local opinions on the morality of slavery in the early 19th century, Rhee described two distinct views that surrounded the topic of emancipation and its role in the Andover community.
“Since the beginning of the 19th century, there was a rise in national and regional conversations on the morality of slavery. By 1835, much of New England believed that slavery is a sin that must be abolished. Yet, there are differing opinions on just how emancipation should occur and just how fast our key divisions begin to emerge. These divisions are embodied in two opposing movements,” said Rhee.
She continued, “African colonization… was the first movement and… [believed] that the best means of abolishing slavery is to gradually emancipate enslaved people, Christianize them and then deport [all] Blacks to Africa… This movement [had] a rather large following on campus… The second movement [was] much more radical and less established… seeking nothing short of immediate abolition, [and] that enslavement… must be eradicated as quickly as possible.”
The Andover administration held firm beliefs supporting African Colonization, conflicting with the vision of students who advocated for the immediate eradication of slavery. To help to explain this struggle for change, Rhee created an analogy of a ship and the challenge to steer it.
“African colonization [worked to] the benefit of the schools acting with knowledge and goodness, maintaining a positive public image and exercising fiscal responsibility. That was the direction they wanted to steer the ship in the media to students. However, [Immediatist students] believed that… knowledge and goodness entailed support of racial equality – it meant joining anti-slavery societies [and] it meant making a public statement. But with strong resistance from the administration and relatively little common ground… the students could not steer the ship in the direction that they wanted. So, they [left] the school in protest,” said Rhee.
Sarah Pan ’24, a friend of Rhee and a fellow CaMD scholar, noted on the uniqueness of Rhee’s presentation. She pointed out the effectiveness of the presentation’s varying media and call to action.
“There was a slide in the middle that said, ‘So, what?’ I thought that this was so interesting and such an unconventional way to do a CaMD presentation. The second half of her presentation was a video with a bunch of students, faculty, trustees, [and it] was honestly so astonishing. Overall, it was just a fantastic presentation [that] really changed the way I thought about how the school approaches social issues,” said Pan.
Owen Huang ’27 shared his opinion on the shift in the different perceptions in enacting change between the Andover administration and the student body in the past and present.
“[The] students represent the first proliferation of the idea [of racial justice] at Andover, and it shows a difference in the way that the school reacted. In 1835, they were pretty quick to suppress that idea of libertarianism, and overall, the school was against the students’ opinions and refused to let the students leave honorably. Whereas now, the school has been much more willing to… enact change, although the change is, once again, slow,” said Huang.
Despite the slow pace of transformation that Andover has seen throughout the years, Angela Jin ’27 was in awe of the boldness of students that opposed the Andover administration on the topic of slavery and gained a sense of inspiration to make progress on campus.
“I remember, in Chloe’s presentation, she talked about how, in recent years, students here are becoming less and less involved with racial issues. I was amazed at how the students back then were able to push their initiative forward with such confidence, boldness, and determination, and I think that we should learn from them. It was also shocking how the students back then were able to focus on such national level issues like racial inequalities and discuss [them] on campus,” said Jin.
Rhee closed her presentation by posing a question to the audience, in hopes of inspiring the students to advocate for change in the ways they define knowledge and goodness.
“I’ll invite you to consider this: think of this history where our frustrations are understanding and our differing ideas of goodness coalesce and then think of today, how might the way we are remembered align with how we want to be remembered? I ask you to let that influence your decisions in the way that you think best [to] live up to knowledge and goodness the most,” said Rhee.
