we are so excited to be here to celebrate. rachel swarns forfamilies who wd

sold to the american catholic church in 1838, a group of america's most prominent catholic. sold 272 enslaved people to their largest mission georgetown university. in this groundbreaking, professor swarns follows family througíúh nearwo centuries of indentured and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of, the catholic church in the united states. rachel swarns is a journalist author and associate professor of journalism at new york university, who writes about race and raccontributing for thk times. her articles about georgetown university's roots in slavery touched off a national conversation about america's universities and their ties to this painful period history. her work by national endowment for the humanities, the four

door ford foundation, the leon levy center for biography, the nal organized asian, among others. as a correspondent for the times, swarns reported from and, southern africa and covered immigration and presidential politics and michelle obama in her role in. the obamwhite house. she is the author of american tapestry the story of the black, white and multiracial coauthor of unseen, unpublished history from the new york times photo archives, swarns will be joined in conversation today with michel martin, the host of morning edition. previously, she was the weekend host of al considered and host of the consider. this saturday podcast, where she drew on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig the week's news. she has spent more than 25 years as a journalist and has been

honored by numerous organizations. and so now please join me in welcing rachel swarns and miche, who. friendlyme of edition. sorry. thank friendly amendment, a host of morning. there are four of us. do not get m in when i go back to work on monday. welcome and home, neighbor. it's nice. have you back and back d.c. quite a journey. you know how many of you read original new york 2016? i know it's been a while. do you remember? okay, so do you ever wonder when somebody writes so it's particularly a deeply reported article. and then a book comes out if there's more to say. do you ever like is there really more to say? i can assert that wondering whu understood or when you

understood that there was so much more to say. what was it after the first piece whic impactful and so deeply reported and so shocking to some that made you say. well, it's so cool. be sitting alongside you and to see you after. so many years. seful to talk a little bit about how even came to this story? and it 2015 students were protesting at georgetown. they were concerned about. two buildings that carry the who happened to be early presidents who had orchestrated this sale. and the administration changed the names that had been considering changing the names, even before that. but the protests caught the eye of a georgetown alum, a ceo

of a tech company, cambridge, said. okay, protest about the buildings, about this history, change the names. but theyá72 like what happened to them and so he reached out a faculty member at georgetown. as i mentioned, georgetown had already been looking into this and trying to think about its own history and slavery and how to wrestle with it. and he said, okay, well, what happened to their all died and said they all died like nearly 300 people. they all descendants. and that seemed implausible to him. there were certainly people in the working group ath(s georgetn who thought there were descendants, but this guy said there weren't. and so this guy, richard cellini, said to himself, that makes absolutely no sense.

company, a republican guy who had not been involved in racial before. but he loved georgetown. and he said, you know, like i we school's existence. it's connected to these people. and so he who started digging and trying to find descendants. and then he reached out to a colleague of at the times who is on the business business reporter, rather. and said, hey, you know, i think i got an exclusive for the times about a slave sale in t georget. and she was kind of like, okay interesting. is that even a story. and so is my great, great fortune that she didn't just

delete the email. i mean, you have to remember this was before the 19 project. you know, this kind reporting was in tallahassee. coates had done his case for reparations, but it wasn't the kind of reporting that we typically do. but shes someone on the staff wd might have a sense this, and she remembered the book i had done about michelle ancestors tracing enslaved ancestors back to the 1800s. so she forwarded the to me and i knew immediately i knew it was the story. my reporting about michelle obama's ancestors had allowed me to explo slavery shaped american families. and i thought that this would be the step to look at how slavery shaped one of our elite institution. so but what i didn't know was, you know who were the 272. and that's wanted to find out. can i just tell you? i, i, i was so moved by every

aspect of that story, which is i rstand the back story until i read the book that think about this little let's can we just marinate in that for a minute. this white guy who had not

thought very much about slavery or enslavement, didn't have any connection to it and understands an institution that he cares deeply about, is deeply enmeshed in it. and he digs into his pocket, does some work, and then reaches

out to you and colleague reaches out to you. and there we have it. and i just think that, you know, , that's reporting one on one, folks. for those of you who really this is what i always my interns answer the email pleaspleaplea'r email. please do read your email. and i would say it's like a very fundamental, which was just who were and what were their names. you know, this is the quote from a book you said this not a disembodied group of people who faceless. these are real people with real names and. real. and that's that was his quote that's what he that's what h fa. let us just ask if there are any among us today who are directly connected to this story. will you show yourself? so can the descendants. yeah. can you stand can we welcome you and honorthank you for here.

i thank you for being here. what is she just saying? what you just said. we're still here. my family in southern illinois right? yeah. and we are glad y'for being her. thank you for allowing your story to rise. your article focused on in the book, it focuses on the bigger story of the role of slavery in the building. the american catholic church. as briefly you can. what was it? why was it so important?■ñ so, you know, i started again by looking this sale, and i think quick story that will make you understand how i got from the sale. the larger picture. and to do that, i tell lot. but i think as a journalist, i'm not a historian. i often thinkyou're writing about slavery, being

aware that there are a lot of folks are going to say, oh, no, no, thank you. page turn your head. and so how do you bring that story to people? how do you get people toy i feey to get people to hear is to tell a story that's compelling, introduce families that people might want to read about the 27d how i got to georgetown and then the catholic church, i lik bring people back to november of 1838 to give you a sense of what it was like for these people and, you know, in 1838,rought fn maryland to alexandria, virginia. and if you had there, you would have see them. scores of people being loaded onto a ship, forcibly loaded elderly people, parents,

children babies, witnesses described people to their knees, weeping, beg f and these were people who were being torn from. all the people they loved and the world that they knew. being being, you know, down south, they were owned by the nation's powerful jesuit priests, as you heard before, who happened to be among the rger were selling these folks when times got hard, as people did because they were their most assets and they ■is school. and as started digging and realizing okay wow hey i happened to be black and cathic that priests were involved in the slave trade. no idea that slavery helped to. you know, this institution. i started looking at the priests and looking at this history and what i learned was itj& wasn't just georgetown, the jesuits

built the early catholic church first in the british colony and then in early america and these priests who relied on slave labor and slave sales built, you know, the first archdiocese, the first cathedral, early convents priests, operated plantations andd. who built the first catholic seminary. so the underpinnings the church were built by deeply, deeply involved in slavery. you write in the book, without the enslaved and the catholic church in the united as we know it today would not exist. s right. one of the things that also me about the book is that you desc oppression led to oppression the entire how interweave the various forms of i found

that very very interesting and. of course upsetting. but could you talk a little bit out th catholic and its attitude toward indigenous people and how the attitude toward indigenous and a of, its attitude toward indigenous people kind of led to its accept instead of the enslavement of people of■a african descent, whh i found really fascinating. one of the things that's really fascinating about the catholic church and we should be very the catholic church. right? it's protestant churches to, you know,8k slavery, foundational fr a lot of things. but the catholic, unlike, you know, there are white people viewed black people as brutes animalsóm purely catholic, said okay. no, we think they have souls. and we want to nurture their souls. but we'rere aut enslaving and selling their bodies.

and people say how that possible. and what did have to say? and that's michel is getting at and it's interesting. slavery is an ancient practice as we know it's in the bible. the jesuits pointed to it, saint paul of, slaves and masters. when europeans went into and then into the americas, they enslaved indigenous peleinitiale protests by priests in rome said, okay, we won't do there se need for labor. and so africans filled that gap and the church about africans too. and if you also want to look at you kind of oppression leading to oppression you know the priests who came to maryland came from england where they were persecuted. catholics were refuge for for

catholics. but in trying to embed themselves and to be recognized as establishment society. slavery, part of establishment society. that's at became part of that. it's important to know, though, there were always voices who raised questions■@were priests y who had concerns it and also one of the other things that i found when catholics were persecuted, not well, persecuted i'm not sure if that's the right word, but marginalized within the politics of maryland they turned to because practiced wouldn't work for them once again and they turned to enslaved africans in order to save their their properties and their their kind of livelihoods. i hear you share that you are also you identify as catholic

from i assume. yeah. cradle catholic. so dod if i ask how this recording? how did it influence? kind of faith walk. yeah did it challenge your faith? walk in any way? so, you know, i think it's interesting. i was doing this work. i'm practicing and know i'm going through these records and some of these records. i've been doing this kind of research a long time, but, you know, bracing records, getting used to seeingyou were writing d people, you were writing about people who are viewed as property. so what you're looking for. looking tax records. you're looking for property records. you're just see these estate records that list, know the coffee tablecloths

the pigs, the dishes, and the list of the human b sobering a'm going to mass, right? so but you know, i think what been interesting to me is the families themselves and the experience of the families themselves. i tell the story of one family in particuahoney family and and the matriarch of that family, a woman by the name of angela, arrives in the 1600s, decades after the first priests arrive. and she's a free person. she's an indentured servant whose freedom is stolen. she's forced into slavery, catholic gentry, but she holds on to the one thing that she has tells anyone who will listen that. she should have been free and that her her liberty was stolen and she tells her children that her that that story passed on

people in her family her descendants resist. of them kill an overseer and executed. they go to court. they sue the some of them win their freedom that way. some of them don't. harry mahoney saves church his wealth in the war of 1812 and rners a pledge from the jesuits that his he neither he nor his family will ever be sold. and that's a pledge that's brso. at times, the priest required of black people to go to participate in the sacraments. there were penalties for not that. there is an where of two families a priest decided two families who had engaged in infidelity should children.

so after the civil war. what families do. you can as y would stay catholic after you're you're the priests and split up your family and sold. interestingly you number of people state number of people left thousands left because church remained segregated afterwards. bumemberof■hi mahoney family many of them stayed. not only did they, but they became lay leaders. some of theme leaders and they to make the church true to its ideals of being a universal church. parishes to joined, became nuns and ran schools. black children. some of their descendants are catholic to this day and those record, it's actually sacramental records have been really important toerms of tracking these families and, you

know, and these descendants who are among us now, many of them catholic, have been in the forefront of pressing the church and georgetown recognize this history. at those folks and in a crazy way, you know, i find some inspiration there. i see folks who said t themselves, church does not belong to the sinful men who are in it. this church they don't control god. they control, you know, the son, the holy spirit. and none of that. and and it their church. and they decided tke way. and to me, that inspire me. so i'm still going. mm hmm. i want to remind you thatqth is a conversation that we can all participate. there's only sadly, there's one mike there, and i hate to make this a fitness, but commendation would be that we're going to turn to questions from you in just a minute.

two. so if you have won a fight you want to you would perhaps begin making your way to the microphone and what you mentioned, that you're not an historiau are basically in conversation with each other. and i'd like to ask, you know, we call it the first draft of history and, you know, all that. i don't i don't know what the appropriate digital term would be. the first time, the history i'm not sure what the right is that even the first one, even using that word. but what was the most i don't know as this wasn't really how you got started in journalism, right? you get st■

even as a reasonably person that i been records person. i covered courts early in my career. local courts and federalds person as a journalist. so records have been like kind of important to me and interesting to me. soearng t)i had learn a whole swath of records, but i, i think i've also beenomeo mysterd the hunt for me is really really interesting and was really when i started on the article that led me to the book about michelle obama. i was searching for her great great grandfather who was born into and was biracial and. i had gone to a cemetery and i was amazed i could go to the archives and find number who is next to him. i thought, you know, i, i had

everything. i had it all together. and then i got to thisit was ind neglected african-american cemetery with a grass to my knees. and the tomtones many you may n the dead were segregated. and right back in the day in the south. so i spent an entire■ completely unsuccessful. i never found his tombstone. but there was something about thatc÷. just sut that that that that grabbed me. and i thought, you know, actually, there is nothing i'd rather be doing than■/#g this. and i came home to my husband. i said good lord, i don't know what happened. something happened to me out there. like, maybe i need get another degree. he's like, maybe not. not that. and then i, i have two kids, whichi mentioned. but, you know, when a publisher

approached me after that story. yokn, he o thing. and so that's that's what it was just kind this i don't know, this weird thing just kind of got me. but i crisis the 19th century and. i don't know. yeah. let's go to your conversation. your questions, thoughts now and please join us and we know who we are. so we would love to know who you are. that's okay. yes, weisler and i'm a recent of montgomery college and. i now live overseas and i'm to te history in schools overseas. and that's something that i really feel very passionately i, i began reading the book, and one thing that struck me in particular was about the story of solomon northup, and in particular and in particular about and in particular about the very details of his

homecoming and. what i was wondering is is what i was wondering is what i was wondering research, what did th? what did you think be among thet striking parallels and contrasts the story of solomon northup, louise of anna and louisa. okay, so good question. first, for those who solomon northup■3 being you, those of yu saw 12 years a slave who was a free black man in the north who was kidnaped, sold back slavery and of course, the southern states had immunized themselves from fromng to pay compensation for people who were wrongly re enslaved. right. so and hisinstructive because ai

mentioned, one of the challenges when you're writing about enslaved is is is that is the material, frankly it's like really, really hard find the material and you know enslaved people were by law and by practice barred from learning to read and write. so the kinds of things you would rely on letters,at kind of thint there. so looking for those records that i mentioned, and you're also looking for contempvoices o can illuminate something for you. solomon northup was someone who was shipped to louisianand very vividly about a lot of things, about what new orleans was, about what. the plantation life was like. and that was very instructive. he also wrote about being reunited with his family and someing that happened to.ot■) the two sisters who were split by the sale, but his his

experience was wasice, which is helpful. thank you. yeah. uine visiting new york. great talk. i'm wondering, i'm also been reading about the others which broke about catholic children. well, there is an overlap. that is the thing i've been hearing about is the boarding h are catholic soldiers. that said. so was there overlap in terms of the same church organization more than both of these are? how is about indigenous boarding schools. yeah. yeah. i i'm glad mentioned that because i would not want my sort of introduction of tha subject about oppression, leading to oppression, the different views for people to think that, you know, indigenous people were so beautifully treated because we right. the in which you know the the the the operative frade phrase was sort of kill the indian to,

save the man. s abuses that people were subjected to physically, emotionally or spiritually. and all of that ish is, i don'tr for you. i wish did i don't. but you i can certainly seend ask the same kinds of questions because there are certainly feels like there parallels there. well i that who had the power felt that they had the authority to develop different grades of humanity. you knowvel of human and you're this level of and if you're this level of human, this is what you get. i think that to be sort of all of a piece and and and know and tearing families apart. right. yeah. and destroying their determined that it's superior. i was thinking of others who

would to join us our jnconversation. oh, i just wanted to mention to the from politics and prose that michelle also was on nightline fori was 12 think anyway, i guei but you know slaves i mean they sold slavesbusiness and then the priest molested thousands and thousands of children. i have a really hard time with this. we're going with this, marjorie. where are you going with this? well, i'm just sitting and, you knowan, it is sort of shocking that people actually stay catholic when they hear all of this. i mean, even the cardinal who the cardinal of the district of columbia is now being he's been re indicted and for what he

did and like do these■, have no shame? i mean, it's okay to sell slaves. it's okay to molest kids. i don't knreligion? if this is what you do when you're a religious person. i don't know. i just you know. i was wondering if any of came into and if any of the slaves, you know, i mean, many slaves were impregnated and and things like that. so did any this come into your storyline of, you know, some of thespeople a slave owners. maybe it was even the priests any of this ever come out. so my my book does with the sexn the, you know and there's a lot work in journalism very that has been done to expose that. and i would say that what i do

is try to show kind of what how slavery fueled the growth of the church, how what what the priest, how they treated people. again, i'm mindful of the fact that it wasn't just the church,e protestant baptists. i mean, it was this was this was sadly it

we're studying is people who say, don't bring your morality it's it's it was legal. it was time. so, you know, can't bring your 21st century truth is that withe catholic church at the time there priests who were raising were protesting. there were priests who you know. one of the priests i write about. the book is a guy by the name of joseph carberry who ran a plantation where this mahoney family enslaved and whenarned ts coming, he objected. and when he was overruled when the traders came, he members of the family toi run. now what's complicated about that you know i'm think oh gosh joseph carberry also but some of

the mahony's ran i mentioned the two sisters luisa and ana luisa. runs with her mother she hides take her sister and another sister away, other family members away. and then luisa and her■r to the plantation where they are welcomed back by joseph carberry into slavery, where they remain luisa e' people in the records owned by enslaved by the jesuits. so it was asituation. but, you know, unfortunately or it just wasn't within the purview. the reporting that i did, i didn't with the sexual scandals. i apologize. yes. and who else would tjoin our conversation? so hello. hi. my name is kyla mathews and the

fourth great granddauger mahone. i'm also a rising well at georgetown law right nowb and. and from i've experienced i would say that the universal d is morey1 responsive or they ted to be more reactive than proactive given their accountability efforts and are especiallyivated by press and media. so i'm wondering from the point of view of a journalist, what you think the most effective lie this narrative and keep attention on this story would be just wh a know a attention spans the way it is. yeah. so it's a good question. and just case some of you don't know. , one of the things that georgetown was offer or what is in effect legacy status

admissions to descendants who were interested in going to georgetown and changed the names of the building is as you know created antute out which is now coming online and then. created ats actually protested and said, hey you know georgetown you need to do more these descendants and theyad tae will institute a fee to raise money for for descen they felt e university should do more. the university said, no, no, no, we're not going to do that, but we're going to raise hundred thousand dollars aprograms thatt descendants. that was that program just got underway this year. and $200,000 as it's been distributed. the jesuits, for their part, and the georgetown and the jesuits,

both apologized. the jesuits partnered with a group of descendants and promised to raise $100 million to benefit racial reconciliation programs and programs for descendants, that would be the larger effort made by the roman church in america. address this history. it has had a slow start. they have not as much money as they had hoped and, you know, as you might imagine, descendants are, you know, have mixed feelings about all of these things and are asking, you know, could more be done, you know, how should this look? they have own ideas about how this should look. so the question you ask is kind of how to kind of keep them focused on on what i'm journaliu know, i'm not in advocacy. you know, i'm not do.

but certainly can say from from and just in the story, you know, pressure from studes to issues involving descendants has certainly drawn media attention and, you know, in covering institutions. we've done a lot of that, you know, that sometimes can be helpful. i would say thatounoeople georgetown has been criticized on all sides by need do more by alums who are like what are you doing and where why where are you going with this? what certainly true is that georgetown and the jesuits have been, you know, right in the thick of what is a growing movement a institutions and municipalities around the country to acknowledge and try to grapple with this history. we're talking about places like evanston, you know, the

state of california. so this is all happening here. and you i never thought i would see it. and the question you're asking is, you know, how do we make them do more? i think part of that what what you guys have done is descendants, which■r was when my first story ran only the georgetown memory project. richard chile needs independent nprofit had identified a handful of descendants you you know there are now known least 6000 descendantsnd when people found out this history and you can imagine kind of what it might be kind history that yr ancestors were sold to save this institution. people, i like to say people awept, raged, and then they organized. and i think that organization and that pressure has know ha te

we've we've had two questions now about thank you for about, you know, history, the teaching of history and what role that history your arrives at a moment of intense backlash about the even$q teaching history that this kind of history in institutions not just you know colleges and in people being you know fired. showing classic works. i think you talked about the fact that you started this work. you know, your book, your your it■$ before or some of the work that has become so sort of polarizing, like the 6019 project for whatever reason fair or unfair, sort of the critiques about it. but your book now lands in a moment where literally people are getting works thrown out of the classroom. one it. i'm just interested in your take on that. yeah. i mean, i think we all know that history is a battleground right now and particularly hior race y

involving, you know, the teaching about race and slavery. and for me, even i first wrote that first article in 2016, this kind of work felt urgent it feels even more urgent to me though? no. i mean, there are i have either colleagues of yours who no longer allow their addresses to be known. i've done where they won't let us know what city they're in because of fear of the threats to their families and children. that is a fact. right. so i'm just curious if right. so if that feels if it feels similarly fraught, presenting work. i mean, this is a very the people you've come here voluntarily. you you are clearly very interested in open and receptive to you know what rachel has to say and the work that she has done. i guarantee you it might not be the same in other places and so yeah, i think ill are more mindful than we might have been a couple of years

members of my family have thought about it, know and worried a bit about it in terms of you know, where■? this lands and how people respond. but as i said, you know to me, urgent. you know, i can't shy away from from doing the work, but i'm also realistic and mindfulmy nai was driving to the grocery store. i decided to@■1■í turn fresh ai. terry gross and you were on and i was feeling great. it was a wonderful day and 15 minutes less. i really got into the story and 30 minutes or less i started tt angry. 45 minutes or less, i furious. so typically7" piggyback back on

some of the comments. if 45 minutes left, i got that angry. how do you do your research? what are grit in your teeth along? the way and with the universities that's %nwho have y with affirmative action decision down soon, right?+ñniversities e compelled since racist focal point. with the decision if it comes down affirmative action. how does that handcuff the university's with this legacy issue that you exposed is is this all of a sudden a different kind of issue that they're going to have to battle the courts, the schools? willhey handcuffed now because of a decision we're? now we have legitimate reasons why. this legitimacy of us. but anyway, you know what i'm

talking about, right? you've got two questions there. one is about a, how do you how do you do this work? and as i mentioned, it's not it's not easy work to do. there are times, you know, where you know i ce acro a document i read something and i just i just have tostop have to, close my eyes, take another breath■ i going because we need to know if if i don't look and if i look away, you know, i think this work needs to be done. so, youe next morning

is it difficult to approach knowing what you get ready to get into you know so is you'r't heartbreaking it's it's i mean some sometimes what i what, i do, i think again a journalist to be able to tell the story need to kind of put mylf there. so i've had conversations my son who's a teenager and you know i about thoseanna the priest tellt to run and i had children, young parents. what do you do? do you run? what do you do? you know, i, i, you know, those things weigh me. you know, but but the thing that's important know, though, too, is that this is a story of

heartbreak for sure, but it is also a story of resistance and struggle. it's also a s family, faith and remember that i came to this as someone a catholic woman who had never heard that catholic enslaved anybody. i had never heard anything. i did not know about these people. i was very motivated and inspired to tell story that i felt had notn told slave people had been left out of the story. and so that is what kept me going. now, on affirmative action was going to say that we've got about five oh, who w love to be part of our conversation yesterday? two quick moving. so, you know, i would say affirmative action is college is i'm a professor at nyu. colleges all across the country are bracing for this and readying for. it's not part of mybut

you're right that a lot of institutions are going to be trying to figure out what to do and, i asked toni morrison that question once that you said that you just asked. i asked her, you know, because some of her books are so deeply disturbing. and so the details and ifor youe stories? she said, not as as it was to live them. right. hi, howard. how is everyone this my name is julie hawkins. ennis. i am from southern maryland. mom was from st mary's. my dad from charles. i grew up strictly catholic, where i came from in southern maryland. like she earlier where we're from. that was the seat of catholicism. i didn't know any other religion until i left st mary's to go to college because everybody i grew up with was catholic. catholic catholicism wasn't wasn't a religion for us it was our way of■wec life. so i didn't hear about this story until about 2015. i was on ancestry and our history was we're from here.

we were from southern maryland, nowhere else. i kept connecting to someone down louisiana and alabama, and we wt band forth about, well, i know you're from the south, yada, yada, yada. make this story short because i'm long winded t 2016, startedw to seven to also son was at gonzaga college high school in wain benefited right also benefited what the students there because of the story started doing their own research of the people at gonzaga. my son called thomas's mom there talking about your home st mary's county, the priest, as he said so old people from southern maryland. my grandmother had just died. we came from a family where i mean, i had friends that would come, whfr because grandmother would be saying the rosary every day. that's all we knew i'd be serious every day, you know, being if you needed something. she every saint to call to get you again if you lost all of it. you know you catholics know what

i mean? it's not just the catholics. okay, well, so originally as a friend of mine, i started talking to richard and he started filling me in along with other g to 17. but here's the thing from for me being from southern maryland, i'm not a part of the that was sold, but we are the part of the fans who lost family. right. and we to find them. as a matter of fact, i'll g do my little stint now. but we're doing i got money from georgetown, me and a team to do a gathering in southern maryland over labor day weekend. so anybody that would like to come who is a descdaelcome becae maryland side we're trying to figure out who are the people we. but in my family, weknows the s. i'm a hawkins. we dorsey. we have a mason and we're still in maryland. but let me tell this. when i found this out, i was s glad my grandmother just passed. i was so glad because she would have been devastated. we looked up. our way of life. when i found i looked like

someone just said i cried, i became angry and i even thought about leaving the catholic church. i'm catholic to thay had to thik through it, talk myself through it. but this is what i want to know. and just like she just said, i grew up fi newtown manor, about ten miles from saint. and it goes my grandmother's bones family was from salem sugar plantation. these are the plantations story. i went to catholic school everybody i had priest nuns and was very you know they honored their black history the on it we never heard this story i never heard of it never we never heard it from the priest we never heard it from the jesuit would i guess you know now that i think about they wouldn't want you to know we never heard about it. i waev wondering know like with my grandmother i was one and it was so much trauma and people were hiding that they just didn't about it. and as the generations wentm frn

maryland, i'm from all these areas where the plantations. yeah, well, i feel like there's a book in you and you might everybody telling me you kill her. do you like that? yes. what? did you have a specific question for rachel? you can she. i didn't have the question. do you think it was trauma that we did not know about this at all? so think sometimes itgthere's ss people have told they thought their elders deliberately didn't tell them, i will this i don't mean to cut you off. my grandfather used to tell me and his family actually grew up at newtown manor but they were free people of cor but he used to tell me that his great grandmother always say, you know, they sold some of us down river. and i had no idea what that was until this happened. and i think he was talking about thethat. yeah. and can we have you join us? hi, i'm lorraine carter. and my question is qck like knoe journalists and, you say because

you're a journalist, you kind of direct your your information far as being a journalist. what i to know once you started book once this book was exposed what kind ofia have with the diet the diet. the these. yeah right and the interaction you had because you have this exposure and everyone particularly in america know this a hidden story thais so are telling the story. so wanting to know as far, as have i had like position okay. and even though you say you're a journalist, what is your position to bring to bring it furtfo accountability for the catholic church, just like georgetown has an endowment and i understand i'm giving o ho whatever. this is not compared to what has

to the people in maryland. so i'm wondering because you have the whathe direct. line to be having a dialog with them what if you have had it what was the outcome or what is being ■actually done right, not what you're giving to the people that were enslaved because america most of us areay this is just one portion. yeah so you know again i am a journalist so i don't involved with know directing policy even advocating for what what i am very involved in and care about and what my next stage of my work is trying to create. i'm working on creating a digital■■rchive of that would it's not just universities it's

just the catholic church it's other religious organizations. insurance. i want to create a digital archive where the data sets of those records arele so that journalists, scholars community members, families can see them and then take the steps that they want to take advocates want to take. but it's not it's not my role as a journalist to use. and also so what saying that there was no actual direct interaction with did the diocese with you know yeahc■! i don't nt certainly not in terms of no one's asking me you know no one from the catholic church is asking me or georgetown. hey, rachel swarns, what should we or like? it's just not role that i play. it's not okay. yeah. so you just wrote the book, so is exposure fordo want to take ? that's you know, there's a

similar project. it's interesting in the united kingdom where, the people who whosertunes, including members of the royal family, were built on, particularly in the islands and very interesting in fact, there was a journalist who actually left the bbc, when she realized that, oh, that's so interesting, who once she been enslavers and she wanted to dig into it further, she she couldn't do both so. she has now decided tt th is fo. focus? yes, ma'am. i thought we can we can just pull it down.just. okay, just i'm just just. yeah, just talk, okay? just so they work. oh, rachel, i you and thank you. we talked back in, of course, may of 2016 after the article ■kwith the breaking big article,

we has a mixing crop. oh, by the way, my name is rochelle prater. oh i wanted to thank you because i, i know the title that article was a million question, which then got a lot of them out being asked here. but the point that i wanted to make clear that i said something to you in article that i felt like i won the lottery and those people may look at that and read that article. i want to share a is the emotionale family that taken to louisiana and how i won the lottery. i've had so much loss in my life. family loss there's gone there with would love to have known this history and understood it but now i cousin julie i h peggn jeremy i have cousin kevin

porter. one of the things that has happed that found other these ft were split by the sale have found each other. so so that is the return on thay breaking is that we are reunion and isty this typically doesn't happen and it continue to happen every day and just like julie said at one on o find as many as we can and we going to come together, as many as we can. and for the lady that was before, that's how we impact how to deal with this history only you know on a national and a world level. thank you final you you. yes. hello. and then after your ritual and i pu spot like you to kind of give us a concluding after this lady shares her

thoughts with us. just give us something to take. ■r just to thank you. and i'm really looking forward to your archive of records. my family3 name also includes te name camp and given but we're from virginia and given the exchange and trafficking of people in the delmarva peninsula, i know that more records will be to me too, because that research is hard to do. and i wanted to push backóm cont oppression that bred oppression, the papal bulls that came down centuries before and the catholic church that basically said enslaved built the new world. just want to know what do you you could just expand on that when you say that the papal yes these people. no, i know. okay. that that the somewhat you know, they

had to enslave people because they couldn't slave ■zna people and no, no. well first of all, let me just say that that was that was not racialist phrasing. that was my of the things i was saying is that what was interesting to me that i learned from the book was that how well i mean don't we see this in the world today, you know you are angry, afraid so. you then oppress somebody else because you're angry and afraid and it's a sort of i mean, given it as law, i'm just wondering, because the bills were law once, those came down. it just became the mode of operation versus that being because you were oppressed in europe. i just think, you know, i just pushing back on that, wondering your comments in to that. yeah. and just so that i'm clear, the you're talking about when i said were seeing themselves as persecuted and feeling like they wanted to join you you know nice society that would be part of society that it was kind of pushing them

away that kind of■y yeah. so they, they, i mean they did about that, you know, they didn't talk about, you know, wanting to be the. truth is of course that it was the economy and that they were also you're absolutely right, very explicit about what their intentions and why they were doing this both terms of rome in termsle. you know, was part of conquest and and about know about money and and with the sale or even the priest who was pushing the hardest for it had a vision building schools in the northeast and he was very, very, very clear that in order to do that, he would need money. and the jesuits would need money to do it. and thithe way that they were going to do it. thank you so thank you for

spending this evening with us. thank all of you for being here and spending this time with us. and i understand you're going to sell some sign signs and also selldering if could just ask you to kind of leave us with a thought. i mean, there's so much here. there's so much you said, it's a story of heartbreak, a story of love. it's a story of resistance. it's a story of reunion. the story a family and coming a family is brok apart by violence. families brought together through love and persistence. and i just. yes. wondering about that. thanks. and said that so nicely yourself. but i guess if you just kind of give us a concluding thought like, when do you would you put your you close your laptop at night and when you thought about what this project has meant to and to the families, what is it that what do you what do you when you're going to go on to another project at some point. but i'm just saying what what

has this meant to y important fr these folks and these folks who are long gone to be seen and and to be recognized and to be acknowledged. and i think that it's important, us as americans, is to understand that this is our history. i think the work that i do, i'm from a historian and that the but i'm engaged with the past because i'm really interested in how we live with this history and what we do with it. and so i think what matters to me is, again, that we are we are mindful of it, that we interrogate, that we don't just you know, journalists are accustomed to this, right. record you'rethe ceo is handing asking questions, ask questions. the history that you've been

taught. why is it that you don't things and and i in recognize using these folks and having them seen is really important. rachel swarns descendants, all of you, thank you all so much for being and thank■h