“Make yourself at home.”
Harvard’s Residential Life page boasts the housing experience here on campus, professing “cozy reading nooks” and “sun-kissed lawns.” Arguably one of the most exciting and integral parts of the Harvard experience, housing assignments and the subsequent demonstration of house pride is somewhat of a rite of passage for all Harvard students. While your housing is supposed to provide an open and welcoming environment, not all students feel as if they can be connected.
Known for the Winthrop Grille, the JFK suite, and its variety of common spaces and facilities located conveniently in a central-river location, Winthrop is an appealing house to be placed in. At least on the surface. But Winthrop’s history is much darker; its namesake both actively worked to enslave and oppress Black and Indigenous individuals during the 1600s and 1700s. These horrific facts have led to the “Dename Winthrop” movement, which recently has pervaded Harvard’s campus with intense jurisdiction.
“What sparked the idea was Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Report,” said Clyve Lawrence ’25, one of the co-founders of the movement. Outraged by the Winthrop family’s past, including evidence of slave ownership and the role in the legalization of slavery, Lawrence decided to get to work. “John Winthrop and his family were directly and intimately involved in creating, maintaining, and defending the institution of slavery in America,” he added.
Together, the Generational African American Students Association (GAASA) and Natives at Harvard College co-sponsored the “Dename Winthrop” movement and petition, which received over 550 signatures from students and alumni, Lawrence explained. The groups created their own report emphasizing their research and demands, put together by over 30 students, and submitted their requests to FAS on March 1st. No official response has been received since.
Keeping Winthrop’s name causes a huge problem for students: how can you love your House when you know its history?
“We quoted a dozen students who told us that learning about the history of the Winthrop family created a sense of discomfort,” Lawrence said, citing a survey within the final report filled out by current Winthrop students. The predicament heightens for students who are directly impacted by the Winthrop family’s outrageous actions. “Black and Indigenous students obviously would rather not live in a house that is named after their oppressor,” said Chaelon Simpson ’26, first-year representative of GAASA.
Simpson, who was placed into Winthrop on housing day, tried to have house pride but struggled to do so. “I can definitely see how it could dampen Black and Indigenous students’ experiences. It will feel weird to live under a house that is named after a family that has committed travesties towards my community, and as a generation African-American, it hurts considerably more.”
In a school that boasts House and community pride, keeping the Winthrop name ostracizes Black and Indigenous students within Winthrop and across Harvard, as they know that Harvard is willing to keep the disgraced name intact. “Black and Indigenous students are particularly harmed when we are constantly exposed to buildings and statues that commemorate slavery and its enactors,” said Lawrence. Harvard has an obligation to represent and protect its students, not continue to empower the shame that names such as Winthrop carries.
The student report explains that the first John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, led initiatives to enslave and sell Native Americans in exchange for African enslaved people. Owning seven slaves of his own, he was directly involved in the Transatlantic slave trade, and as governor, legalized slavery in Massachusetts. Generations later, Winthrop’s great-great-grandson, also named John, served as the President of Harvard, owned two slaves, and consistently defended the practice. Because of this evidence, “Denaming is necessary, and denaming now is necessary,” the report exclaims.
“In many ways, not denaming the house shows complacency and an inability to adapt to change as our nation, and the College, progresses,” Simpson stated. Harvard’s silence on the concerns of its students and faculty, especially considering the publication of its 2022 report, highlighted the same atrocities that the Winthrop family committed. Refusing to dename Winthrop goes against the progress the University has attempted to make, further devastating the community. Simpson exclaimed, “Harvard has made a commitment in its recent Legacy of Slavery report to address long standing issues of racism in the community, and denaming Winthrop would show its commitment.”
It is up to Harvard now to make the right decision and to dename Winthrop. Harvard students in Winthrop have a right to feel just as prideful of their House as others do yet preserving its slavery-driven history prevents students from being able to do so. Furthermore, Harvard needs to provide truthful context to the backgrounds of people such as the Winthrops. They were not just lawmakers and professors, like the Winthrop House History page exclaims, but oppressors and bullies who made disastrous decisions. “If our Houses are named after slave owners, that means we’re commemorating inequality and injustice. We should take care to acknowledge our harmful history and work to make a better one,” said Lawrence.
“A century ago, our House system was created to build community,” Lawrence exclaimed. “We live in our Houses and join their stories, creating relationships with other students under a shared identity. It’s disheartening that we have Houses whose namesakes are people who destroyed communities.”
Layla Chaaraoui ’26 (laylachaaraoui@college.harvard.edu), signed the Dename Winthrop petition, and hopes one day, the demands of students will finally be met.