Joaquina Bela Teixeira says she was not expecting Brown University to make any monetary reparations. Nor is Teixeira, who is the executive director of the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, unfamiliar with the Ivy League institution’s historic ties to slavery explored in a long-awaited report released Tuesday.

But Brown has made “a first reparation . . . by repairing the historical record,” says Teixeira.

“We owe them a debt of gratitude; for the first time, an institution has looked at its role and said, ‘We’re responsible.’ ” No matter what the public response may ultimately be, Teixeira says the report furnishes groundwork for essential dialogue.

Teixeira is one of several prominent players in the state’s black community who yesterday offered their thoughts on the 106-page report released on Tuesday by the Brown Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. University President Ruth J. Simmons, a descendent of slaves, established the 17-member committee. The report was three years in the making.

The committee — which included administrators, students and faculty — explored whether Brown should make financial reparations, but ultimately decided against that.

The group did make many recommendations. Key among them: revising Brown’s history to reflect its connection to slavery by virtue of its founders’ and benefactors’ participation in the slave trade; establishing a university center for research on slavery; and intensifying and consolidating the university’s efforts to improve public education in Rhode Island, especially in its urban schools.

Teixeira said that the black heritage society’s board members all intend to read the entire report and convey “in one voice” their response at a campus forum at Brown on Nov. 1.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island to, in a sense, partner up with Brown in a way it hasn’t done before, and we’re hoping we will be a part of that equation,” says Teixeira.

Keith W. Stokes, executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, commended the report but said he hoped it would go further. Stokes and his wife, Theresa Guzman Stokes, have worked for years to chronicle Newport’s slavery past; including efforts to preserve the memories of slaves buried at the Common Burying Ground in Newport.

“I think it’s an excellent document. I’m very, very impressed,” said Stokes.

“Very few institutions have been willing to take this on, and hopefully [the report] has the ability to be a model for other institutions. … The historical and intellectual integrity is unsurpassed.”

But Stokes said he had hoped the report might include “more discussion and discourse about Africans themselves.”

“When we discuss how to engage the issue, there’s almost a focus on the slaves as helpless victims, and sense of shame and guilt,” said Stokes. “One of the things that has to happen, if there is ever going to be true, thoughtful dialogue, is that we have to recognize these Africans were true flesh and blood human beings. They simply weren’t chattel property — they were flesh-and-blood people.”

Stokes gave the example “from a Newport perspective” that many slaves helped build numerous institutional buildings in the city, including the Brick Marketplace, the Redwood Library and the Touro Synagogue, to mention a few.

“The difference is, rather than just leaving it there — that forced labor, African slave labor built them — and the buildings are recognized as architectural masterpieces. Shouldn’t we also recognize the Africans who built them? They were artisans. They were skilled craftspeople. It’s a perspective of humanizing it — being accountable to the fact that as Africans arrived here as slaves, they quickly became contributors to our economic and social well-being. Let’s start talking about it.”

Clifford R. Montiero, president of the NAACP’s Providence branch, said he is “excited to be born in a time when historic corrections” to the slavery record, are being made. He said it’s critical “that people will be able to piece together a [previously] distorted history.”

Montiero said, “As you know, I’m a Rhode Island native and I question the name of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. And I was always informed it had nothing to do with slavery.” But he credited a Providence Journal series on the slave trade by reporter Paul Davis, and the Brown committee report, for underscoring “that 60 to 90 percent of the slave ships that brought slaves to America were owned by Rhode Islanders. Now we’re finding out how dependent the Rhode Island economy was on the slave trade.”

Montiero said he hopes Brown will heed the recommendation that it work harder to improve Rhode Island’s inner-city schools.

“… Public education has not been supported. I think other educational institutions and corporate communities need to step up. We have a crisis in public education … our inner-city schools are crying for help and we’re hoping Brown will signal to others in the corporate world to step up to the plate.”

Urban League executive director Dennis Langley called the report “a very awesome piece. I think I have greater respect for the leadership of Brown in their candor in getting to the root of the issue. And really, to put history in its right perspective. As painful as it was, the truth sets one free.”

Langley shared Montiero’s hope that Brown will commit more resources to the state’s inner-city schools, which he said are functioning “at a dismally low” level.

“The outcome is so low that we need something to revive the input to our kids…. They were all endured with that faculty to learn, if the appropriate information was shared with them in an educational way.” Creating a nurturing learning environment would provide “tangible returns,” such as improving the work force and providing incentive for companies to relocate here.

Charles Walton, who served 18 years in the Rhode Island Senate and as a member of the Rhode Island Black Caucus of Legislators, said he believes that “the issue of reparations should be put on the table” to amend for profits made by the Browns.

Walton suggested that the report “should be sent to the leaders across this state” in the business community, advocacy groups and clergy, among others. Locally, “there should be a convening of many of these leaders to talk about the tenor of this report and its impact on what’s going on in the community today.”

“…There’s a lot to be done. I applaud President Simmons for really taking this initiative, but the bottom line, it seems to me, from this point forward, will be how does that translate into an action plan?"