Cast in ductile iron on the Front Green beside University Hall, your Slavery Memorial depicts a broken ball and chain. Designed by sculptor Martin Puryear and dedicated in 2014, the memorial is a piece of ductile cast iron: a cast-iron ball and chain, partly buried underground, its third link broken in two. A granite plaque in front of it reads: 'This memorial recognizes Brown University’s connection to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the work of Africans and African-Americans, enslaved and free, who helped build our university, Rhode Island, and the nation.' That plaque and the sculpture ask you to place this place in context.
In 2003 Brown President Ruth J. Simmons initiated a study of this aspect of the university’s history. The inscription reminds you that in the eighteenth century slavery permeated every aspect of social and economic life in Rhode Island. Rhode Islanders dominated the North American share of the African slave trade, launching over a thousand slaving voyages in the century before the abolition of the trade in 1808, and scores of illegal voyages thereafter.
Notice University Hall and the green framing this spot, carrying the weight of those facts with you.