Long before African Americans were admitted to Ivy League schools, they were building them—literally. Enslaved Black laborers constructed buildings, cooked meals, and maintained campuses while the wealth from plantations funded scholarships, libraries, and faculty salaries. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia—they all grew on the backs of Black labor. The work was essential, the credit erased, and the profit celebrated. America’s most prestigious universities didn’t rise above slavery—they rose b