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rachel swarns for the 72, the families who were enslaved and sold to the american catholic church in 1838, a group of america's most prominent catholic. sold 272 enslaved people to their largest mission project,

which is now georgetown university. in this groundbreaking, professor swarns follows family through nearly two centuries of indentured and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin storyurch in the united states. rachel swarns is a journalist author and associate professor of journalism at new york university, who writes about race and race relations as a contributing for the new york times. her articles abouteo slavery touched off a national conversation about america's universities and their ties to this painful her work has recognized and supported by national endowment for the humanities, the four door ford foundation, the leon levy center for biography, the biographers international organized asian, among others. as a correspondent for the"ñ times, swarns reported from

russia, guatemala and, southern africa and covered immigration and presidential politics and michelle obama in her role in. the obama white house. she is the author of american tapestry the story of the black, white and multiracial ancestors michelle obama and the coauthor of unseen, unpublished history from the new yorkes photo archives, swarns will be joined in conversation today with michel martin, the host of morning edition. previously, she was the weekend host of all things considered and host of the consider. this saturday podcast, where she drew on her deepy dig the week's news. she has spent more than 25 years as a journalist and has been honored by numerous or■wganizations. and so now please join me in welcoming to politics and prose rachel swarns and michel martin, ■who.

friendly amendment, a host of edition. sorry. thank friendly amendment, a host there are four of us. do not get me in when i go back to work on monday. welcome and he, neighbor. it's nice. have you back and back in d.c. quite a journey. read original new york times piece in 2016? i know it's been a while. do you remember? okay, so do you ever wonder when somebody write 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 there is. and i was wondering why you understood or when you understood that there was so much say. what was it after the first piece which was so impactful and so deeply reported and so shocking tounderstand that therh

more to say. well, it's so cool. be sitting alongside you and to see you after.y years. so think it might be useful to talk a little bit about how even came to this story? and it started. 2015 students were protesting at georgetown. they were concer about. two buildings that carry the names of two of the priests who happened to be early presidents who had orchestrated this sale. and the administration changed the names that r>had be■f the n, even before that. but the the protests caught the eye of a georgetown alum, a ceo of company, cambridge, who said. okay, protest about the buildings, about this names. but the 272 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 said, okay, well, wht happened to their descendants? and he was told they all died and said they all died like nearly 300 people. they all died no descendants. and that seemed implausible to th certainly people in the working group at georgetown 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. ichard was someone and he's a white guy, ceo of a tech company, a republican guy who had not been involved in racial

issues in any way before. but he loved georgetown. and he said, you know, like i think we kind of owe, you know, something to these people. we school's existence. it's connected to these hired tf genealogists 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 side. business reporter, rather. and said, hey, you know, i think i got an sale in the 1830s that benefited georgetown. 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 eil. 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 e typically do. but she remembered that there

was someone on the staff who had might have a sense this, andhe me 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 d allowed me to explore how slavery shaped american families. and i thought that this would be the step to lookhoshaped one ofe institution. so but what i didn't know was, you know who were the 272. and that's that's what i needed to find out. what i wanted to find out. can i just tell you? i, i, i aspect of that story, which is i didn't understand the back story until i read the book that think about this little let's can we st a minute. this white guy who had not

thought very much about slavery or enslavement, didn't have any connection to 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, it's first of all, that's reporting one on one, folks. for those of you who really this is what i always my interns answer the email please please please please don't read your 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 people who are nameless and faceless. these are real people with real names■ and. real. and that's that was his quote that's what he that's what he says. what he felt.

in fact in fact. 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 and honor you. thank 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 southeril and we are glad you're still here. thank you for being here. thank you for allowing your story tole focused on georgetown. in the book, it focuses on the bigger story of the role of slavery in the building. the american catholic church. as can. what was it? why was it so important? so, you know, i started again by looking thisit would be helpful. just a quick story that will

make you understand how i got from the sale. the larg picture. and to do that, i just to tell a story which i tell lot. but i think as a journalist, i'm not a historian. i often think about when you're writing about slavery, being aware that there are a lot of no, thank you. you know, turn the page turn your head. and so how do you bring that story to people? how do you get people to hear? and the way i feel, the best way to get people to hear is to tell a story that's that people might want to read about. so when i talk about the 272 and how i got to like 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, these folks were brought from southern

maryland to alexandria, had there, you would have seen them. scores of people being loaded onto a ship, forcibly people, p, children babies, witnesses described people to the kneeswe. and these were people who were being torn from. all the people they loved and the■ç world that they knew. being being, you know, down south, they were owned by the nation's powerful jesuit priests, as you heard before, whlarger slave holders in maryland. and they were selling these folks when times got hard, as people did because they were ost assets and they wanted save this school. and as started digging and realizing okay wow hey ihappened catholic had no idea 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 ú[what i learned was it 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 salesknow, the e first cathedral, early convents priests, operated plantations and sold. who built the first catholic seminary. so theerpinnings the church were built by priests were deeply, deeply involved in slavery. you write in the book, without the enslaved and the catholic church in e it today would not exist. that's right. one of the things that also me

about the book is that you describe oppression led to oppression the entire how various forms of oppression have been and i found that very very interesting and.t about the catholic and its attitude toward indigenous people and how the attitude toward kind of a a transformation of, its attitude toward indigenous people kind of led to its accept instead of the enslavement of people of african descent, which i found really fascinating. one of the things that's really fascinating about the■x catholic church and we should be very clear that it's not just the catholic church. right? it's protestant churches to, you know, slavery, foundational for a lot of things. but the catholic, unlike, you

know, there are white people viewed black people as brutes animals purely catholic, said okay. no, we think they havewe want tr souls. but we're we're about enslaving and selling their bodies. and people say how that possible. and what that's michel is gettit and it's interesting. slavery is an ancient practice as we know it's in the bible. paul talking, about the responsibilities of, slaves and masters. when europeans went americas, ty enslaved indigenous people. initially and there were protests by priests indo that bt about. but there still this insatiable need for labor. and so ahat gap and the church rome silent 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 ey pers. catholics were persecuted and maryland was a refuge for for catholics. but in trying to embed themselves and to be recognized as establishment society. slavery, part of establishment society. that's what it was. and and they became part of that. it's important to know, though, there were alwaysuestions the. priests. there were priests all the way who had concerns it and also one the oer found about the book is how at times when catholics were persecuted, not well, persecuted'noght word, but marginalized within the politics of maryland they turned to because practiced wouldn't

work for them once again and theyurned 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 assumad you. do you mind if i ask how this recording? how did it influence? kind of faith walk. yeah. you. did it challenge your faith? walk in any way? so, you know, i think i was doing this work. i'm catholic. i'm a 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 seeing if you were if you were writing about enslaved people, you were writing about

people whoso what you're lookin. you're looking tax records. you're looking for property records. you're just see these estate records that list, know the coffee tables, the tablecloths the pigs, the dishe beings. so that's sobering and then i'm going to mass, right? so but you know, i think is the families themselves and the experience of the families themselves. i tell the story of one family in particular, the mahoney family and and the matriarch of that family, a woman by the name of angela, arrives in the 1600s, not just a few 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 sheg that s

which her story and she 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 herendants resist. some of them are one of the two of them kill an overseer and executed. they go to court. the some of tn their freedom that way. some of them don't. harry mahoney saves church hie d garners a pledge from the jesuits that his he neither he nor his family will ever be sold. and that's a pledge that's broken. 1838. so. at times, the priest required of black people to go to mass to participate in the sacraments. there were penalties forot

there is an where of two families a priest decided two had engaged in infidelity should be punished. he sold their children. so after the civil war. what families do. you can ask, you know, would stay catholic after you're you're the priests and split up your family and sold. interestingly you know people a number of people state number of people left thousands left because church remained segregated■? afterwards. but members of this mahoney family many of them stayed. not only did they, but they became lay leaders. some of them became leaders and they to make the church true to its ideals of being a universal church. they set up black parishes to joined, became nuns and ran

black children. some of their descendants are catholic to this day and those record, it's actually sacramental records have geneals and to myself in terms of tracking these families and, you know, and these now, many of thm still catholic, have been in the forefront of pressing the church and georgetowrecognize this history. so i look at those folks and in a crazy way, you know, ition th. i see folks who said to themselves, church does not belong to the sinful men who are in church they don't control god. they control, you know, the son, the holy spirit. andd it their church. and they decided to make it that way. and to me, that inspire me. so i'm still goii want to remins

is a conversation that we can all participate. there's only sadly, there's one mike the, mike 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 share, if you would perhaps begin making your way to the microphone mentioned, that you're not an historian, but, you know, historians and journalists 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 rights even tg 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 started in journalism to kind of chronicle what's around you right now, right? not what happened. 304 hundred years ago.

so i was just intewhether was tf yourself that you had to to sort of in order to do this work or you had to change your practice in some way? or there was a lot of learning involved. i realized, you know, there was so much about american history even as a reasonably person that i just know. i've always been records person. i covered courts early in my ederal courts. so i've always been a records person as a journalist. so records have been like kind of important to me and interesting to me. so learning i had to learn a whole swath of records, butbeeno always loved a good mystery and the hunt for me is really really interesting and was rlly 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 the archives and find where was buried. the plot, you know, the number who is next to him. i thought, you know, i, i had everything. i had it allthen i got to this . it was in birmingham, this old neglected african-american cemetery with a grass to my knees. and the tombstones toppled. and many you may know that even the dead were segregated. and right back in thy south. so i spent an entire day completely unsuccessful. i never found his tombstone. but there was something about that. just something about that that that that grabbed me. and i thought, you know, actually, there is nothing i'd rather be doing than 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 i9 need not.

not that. and then i, i have two kids, which is, it's like, what are you doing? i mentioned. but, you know, when a publisher approached me after that story. you know, he said, okay, that's the thing. and so that's that's what it was just kind this i don't know, this weirdhing just kind of got me. but i joke my midlife 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. i'm. my name is nathan weisler and i'm a recent of montgomery college and. i now live overseas and i'm to teach american history in schools overseas. and that's something that i

really feel very passionately about. i, i began reading the book, and one thing that struck me in particular northup, and in particular and in particular about and in particular about the very details of hhomecoming. what i was wondering is is what i was wonder is what i was wondering is in the course of your research, what did think? was what did you believe to be among the most striking parallels and contrasts the story of solomon northup, that of emma and of anna and louise of anna and louisa. okay, so good first, for those who solomon northup being you, those of you saw 12 years a slave who was a free black man in the north who was kidnaped, sold back slavery and of course,he southern

states had immunized themselves from from from having to pay compensation for people who were wrongly re enslaved. right. so and his his story is very instructive because as i mentioned, one of the challengbt 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 y journad that kind of thing are not there. so looking for those records that i mentioned, and you're also looking for contemporaneous voices of people at the time who can illuminate something for you. solomon northup was someone whod very vividly about a lot of things, about what new orleans was, aboutplantation life was l.

and that was very instructive. he also wrote about being reunitedh his family and unfortunately, that was not something that happened to. the two sisters who were split by the sale, but very helpful. and you get to hear his voice, which is helpful. thankah. hi. my name is genuine 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 schools. which are catholic soldiers. that said. so was there overlap in terms of the same churchre than both of ? how is that? and i think you're talking about indigenous boarding schools. yeah. yeah. i i'm glad ment

because i would not want my sort of introduction of that subject about oppression, leading to oppression, the different views for people to think that, you know, indigented because we are now seeing. right. right. the in which you know the the the the operative frade phrase was rt to, save the man. but just horrendous abuses that people were subjected to physically, emotionally or spiritually. and all of that is is coming to light now. the truth is, i don't an answer for you. i wish did i don't. but you i can certainly see and ask the same kinds of questions because there are certainly feels likegy could see the paral being that that who had the power felt that they had the authority to develop different grades of humanity. you know you're this level 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.stroying their culture and the same and substituting your own because you've determined that it's superior. i was thinkingf others who would to join us our conversation. oh, i just wanted to mention to the from politics and prose that michelle also was on nightline for decades. i was 12 think anyway, i guess i think order to begin here. but you knowh4 slaves i mean thy sold slaves stay business and then the priest molested thousands and thousands of children. i have a really hard time with this. we're going with this, marjorie. with this?

well, i'm just sitting and, you know, i mean, it is sort of shocking that people actually stay catholic when they hear all of this. i mean, even the cardinallumbias defrocked and now being he's been re indictefo did and like do these people have no shame? i mean, it's okay to sell kids. i don't know what is the religion? if this is what you do when you're a religious pson. i don't know. i just you know. i was wondering if any of this 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 ■?, you know, some of these people are probably descendants of some of the slave owners. maybe it was even the priests any of this ever come o. my my't

all with the sex scandals in the, you know and there's a lot work in journalism very important work in journalism that has been done to expose that. and i would say that what i do is try to show kind of what how slaverchurch, how what what the priest, how they treated people. again, i'm mindful of the fact catholic episcopal church, all the protestant baptists. i mean, it was this was this was sadly it was what was happening at the time but, you■) history. there's no way around it. and the reason why it shocked me was bause enslaved people have been left largely out of the

story that the catholic traditionally tells about itself. and that's that's true.hç it's alsoru though and important to note that as i mentioned before that there were priests who raised questions and concernsbout this. important bee thing that you often hear when you talking about slavery is we're studying is people who say, don't bring your morality to table here. it's it's it was legal. it was time. so, youw, can't bring your 21st century judgments to it. but the truth is that within the catholic church at the time there priests who were raising questions there were priests who 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 ly enslaved and when he

learned that this sale was coming, he objected. and when he was overruled when the traders came, he members of the family to run. now what's complicated about that you know i'm think oh alsof the mahony's ran i mentioned the two sisters luisa and ana luisa. runs with her mother she hides the woods, the ships leave. take her sister and another away. away, other family and then luisa and her mother to the plantation where they are welcomed back by joseph carberry into slavery,■ where they reman luisa she's one of the last people in the records owned by enslaved by th jesuits. so it was a complicated situation. but, you know, it just wasn't within the

purview. the reporting that i did, i didn't with the sexual scandals. i apologize. ■ would to join our conversation? so hello. hi. my name is kyla mathews the fourth great granddaughter of louisa mahoney. i'm also a rising well at georgetown law right and. and from i've experienced i would say that the uis more resd to be more reactive than proactive given thrlity effortse especially motivated by press and media. so i'm wondering from e rnalistt you think the most effective way to kind of keep a like preserve this narrative and keep tention on this story would be just with a you know, a

attention spans the way it is. yeah. so it's a good question. and just case some of you don't know. so in 2016, one of the things that georgetown was status preface preference in admissions to descendants who were interested in going to georgetown and changed the names of the building is as you know created an institute out which is now coming online and then. created a fund students actually protested and said, hey you know georgetown you need to do■j more these descendants and they had a referendum and said you know we will tax ourselves in effect we will institute amoney for for ds because they felt that the university should do more. the university said, no, no, no, we're going t■5o do that, but we're going to raise hundred thousand dollars a year for

programs that benefit descendants. that was that program just got underway this year. and $200,000 as it's been distributed. the jesuits, for their part,7' d 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 not as much money as they had hoped and, you know, as you might imagine, scendants are, you know, have mixed feelings about all of these things and are asking, you know, could more be done, you know, how shld have own ideas about hw this should look.

so the question you ask is kind of how to kind of keep them joafocused on on what needs to happen. you know, i'm journalist so, you know, i'm not i'm not laying. yeah, that's not what i do. but certainly can say from from anst in therom students and raising attention to issues involving descendants has rt media attention and, you know, in covering institutions. we've done a lot of that, you know, that sometimes can helpful. i would say that you know people georgetown has been criticized on all■ sides by descendants by people who think they need do more by alums who are like what are you doing and where why where are youwhat certainly trut

georgetown and the jesuits have been, you know, right in the thick of whatmovement among insd municipalities around the country to acknowledge and try talking about places like evanston and, you know, the state of california. so this is all happening here. and you i never thought i would e it. and the question you're asking is, you know, how do we make them do more? i think part of guys have done s descendants, which was when my first story ran only the georgetown memory project. richard chile needs independent nonprofit had identified a handful of descendants you you know there are now known least 6000 descendants and and when people found out this history it might be like to find out this kind history that your

ancestors were sold to save this inut i like to say people wept, raged, and then they organized. and that pressure has know had an impact. let me ask this, though, because 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 should play in our current moment. you know, your arrives at a moment of intense backlash teact this kind of history in institutions not just you know colleges and inbeing you know fired. that's right. you know, showing classic works. i think you talkedarted this wo. you know, your book, your your initial article landed before or some of the work that has become so sort of polarizing, like the 6019ro whatever reason fair or unfair, sort of the

critiques about it. but your book now lands in a moment where literally people are gett&x■ing works thwn o o the classroom. one person complains because one person doesn't like it. i'm just interested in your take on that. yeah. i mean, i think we all know that history is battleground right now and particularly history involving race and history involving, you know, the teaching about race■] even i fie that first article in 2016, this kind of work felt urgent it feels even more urgent to me now. did it feel dangerous, though? no. i mean, there are i have either colleagues of yours who no longer allowes to be known. i've done interviews with them 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 mino places o yeah, i think i think as journalists i think we all are more mindful than we might have years ago. certainly i should say that members of my family have thought about it, know and worried a bit terms of you know, where this lands and how people respond. know to, it feels it feels urgent. you know, i can't shy away from from doing the work, but i'm realistic and mindful and. careful, sir. my name is freda and wednesday i was driving to the grocery store. i decided to turn fresh air. terry gross and you were on■k■éd 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 getting angry. 45 minutes or less, i furious. so typically piggyback back on some of the comments. if 45 minutes leftangry. how do you do your research? what are grit in your teeth along? the way andthe universities that's widespread. who have benefited from slavery with affirmative action decision down soon, right? how do the universities are compelled since racist focal point. with the decision if it comes down affirmative action. how does that handcuff the this legacy issue that you exposed is is

this all of a sudden a different kind o courts, the schools? will they handcuffed now because of a decision we're? now we have legitimate reaso 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, knowa document i read something and i just i just have to just i just stop have to take a breath, close my eyes, take another breath and i going because we

need to■4 know if if i don't lok and if i look away, you know, i think this work needs to be done. so, you know so i keep reading when you get up the next morning is it difficult to approach knowing what you get ready to get into you know so here's the thing is you're right it's it heartbreaking it's it's i mean some sometimes what i what, i do, i think to tell the story need to kind of put myself there. so i've had conversations my son i about those sisters luisa and anna the priest telling them got to run and i had children, young children they had elderly

parents. what do you do? do youy run? what do you do? you know, i, i, you know, those things weigh me. you 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 story of 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 i did not know about these people. so i was very motivated and inspired tofelt had not been toe people had been left out of the story. and so that is what kept me■ on affirmative action was going to say that we've got about five oh, who would love to be part of our conversation

yesterday? two quick say affirmative action is college is i'm a professor at nyu. colleges all across the country are bring for this and readying for. it's not part of my purview, but you're right that a lot of institutions are going to be ng to do and and i will leave it alone. well, i asked toni morrison that question once that you said that you just asked. i asked her, you k deeply disturbing. and so the details and i said is it hard for you to write these stories? she said, not as as it was to live them. right. hi, howard. how is everyone this evening? 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 didn't know any other n until i left st mary's to go to college because everybody i grew

up with was catholic. a religion for us it was our way of 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 down louisiana and alabama, ad we went back and forth about, well, i know you're from the south, yada, yada, yada. make this story short because i'm winded about 2016, i started hearing about the grew to seven to also son was at gonzaga college high school in washington d.c. which also benefited right also benefited what the students there becauowt gonzaga. my son called thomas's mom there talk 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, white friends that thought we were part italian because grandmother would be saying the rosary every day. that's all we knew i'd be ery 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 justhe cathol well, soa 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 families that was sold, but we are the part of the fans who lost family. right. ande to find them. as a matter of fact, i'll go and do my little stint now. but we're doing i got money from georgetown, me and a team to do a gathering inb■&ay weekend. so anybody that would like to come who is a descendant, we would welcome because the maryland side we're trying to figure out who are the people we. but in my family, we have i have bona. she knows the surnames. 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 so glad my grandmother just passed. i was so glad because she would ked up. i mean, catholics say it was our way of life. when i found i looked like someone just said i cried, i beca angrynd i even thought about leaving the catholic church. i'm catholic to this day. my entire family had to think through it, talk myself through it. but this is what i want to know. like she just said, i grew up five miles from newtown manor, about ten miles from saint. and it goes my grandmother's bones family was from salem sugar plantation. these are the plantations we never heard this story at all. i went to catholic school everybody i had priest nuns and then came from a community that 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 woul'o know we never heard about it. i was even wondering know like with my grandmother i was one and it was so much trauma and pe didn't about it. and as the generations went on, it just went away. because i'm from southern maryland, i'm from all these areas where thelayeah, well, i's a book in you and you might consider everybody telling me do you like that? yes. what? did you have a specific question for rachel? you can share. i just wanted to share that, but i didn't have the question. do you think it was trauma that we did not know about this at all? so think sometimes it was, you know, there's some some families 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 atanor but they were free people of color. right. 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 until this happened. and i think he was talking about the good you for sharing that. yeah. and can we have you join u hi, i'm lorraine carter. and my question is quick. i'd like know because you are 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 of dialog did you have with the diet the diet. the. yeah right and the interaction you had because you have this exposure and everyone in america know this a hidden story that is not being told. so are telling the story. so wanting to know as far, as have i had like backlash or no. would your position okay. and even though you say you're a

journalist, what is your position to bring to bring it further for more accountability for the catholic church, just like georgetown has an■d endowmt and i understand i'm giving out scholarships or whatever. this is not compared to what has to the people in maryland. so i'm wondering because you have the what the direct. line to having a dialog with them have you had that in what outcome or what is beinga actually done right, not what you're giving to the people tha/ were enslave because america most of us are people and say this is just one portion. yeah so you knowin i am a journalist so i don't get 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 archive of that would it's not just universitie' chu's other religious organizations. it's banks. it's insurance. i want to create a digital archive where of those records are available so that journalists, scholars community members, famil the sts that they want to take that communities want to take advocates want to take. but it's not it's not my role as to use. and also so what you saying that there was no actual direct interaction with■& did the dioce with you know yeah i don't not certainly not in terms of no one's asking me you know

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 so you just wrote the book, so is exposure for people? do want to take it further? that's you know, there's a similar project. 's intere where, the people who whose vast fortunes, including members of the royal family, were built on, particularly in thlands and very interesting to see these folks reckoned with. in fact, there was a journalist who actually left the bbc, when she real that, oh, that's so interesting, who once she realized that, you know, her family had been enslavers and she wanted to dig into it further, she she couldn't both so. she has now decided that that is going to be her focus. focus? yes, ma'am. thought we can we can just pull it down. yeah, yeah. just. okay, just i'm just just. yeah, just talk, okay?

just so th work. oh, rachel, i want publicly acknowledge you and thank you. we talked back in, of course, may of 2016 after the article with the breaking big article, we has a mixing crop. oh, by the way, my name is rochelle prater. oh, but i wanted to thank you because i, i know the title was, which i had at the time and then got a lot of them out being asked here. ■bu■mt the int 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 shareemotional becauss some of the 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 have cousin peggy i have cousin jeremy i have cousin kevin porter. one of the things that has happened that families have now found other these families that were split by the sale have found each other. so so that split your efforts that is the return on that storn and this is baylor in the african-american community this typically doesn't happen and it continue to happen every day and just like julie said our hearts beat at one on that goal we go find as many as we can and as we can. and for the lady that was before, that's how we impact how to deal with this and a

world level. thank you so much. and i think this will be our final■q you you. yes. hello. and then after your ritual and i put you on the spot like you to kind of give us a concluding after this lady shares just give us something to take. i just to thank you. and i'm really looking forward to your archive of records. my family name also includes the name camp and given but we're exchange and trafficking of people in the delmarva peninsula, i know that more records will be to me too, because that research i wanted y on this concept that it oppression that bred oppression, the papal bulls that came down centuries before and the catholic church that basically said enslaved ilt th

world. just want to know what do you think of that i don't know if you could just expand on that when you say that thethese peop. no, i know. okay. but what you said earlier that that the somewhat you know, they l4had to enslave people because they couldn't enslave native people and no, no. well first of all, let me just say that that was that was not racialist phrasing.