we are so excited to be here to

celebrate. 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 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 race relations as a contributing for the new york 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 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 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of american tapestry the story of the black, white and multiracial ancestors michelle obama and the coauthor of unseen, unpublished history from the new york times photo archives, swarns will be joined in conversation today with michel martin, the host of morning edition.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 all things 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 welcoming to politics and prose rachel swarns and michel martin, who. friendly amendment, a host of edition. sorry. thank friendly amendment, a host of morning. there are four of us. do not get me in when i go back to work on monday. welcome and home, neighbor. it's nice. have you back and back in d.c. quite a journey. you know how many of you 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 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 there is. and i was wondering why you understood or when you understood that there was so much more to say. what was it after the first piece which was so impactful and so deeply reported and so shocking to some that made you understand that there was much more to say. well, it's so cool. be sitting alongside you and to see you after. so many 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 concerned 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 had been considering changing the names, even before that. but the the protests caught the eye of a georgetown alum, a ceo of a tech company, cambridge, who said. okay, protest about the buildings, about this history, change the 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 with it. and he said, okay, well, what 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 him. there were 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. and richard 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 people. and so he hired team of 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 exclusive for the times about a slave 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 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 she remembered that there was someone on the staff who had 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 explore how 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 that's what i needed to find out. what i wanted to find out. can i just tell you? i, i, i was so moved by every 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 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, 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 this not a disembodied group of 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 you 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 southern illinois right? yeah. and we are glad you're still here. thank you for being here. thank you for allowing your story to rise.

your article 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 briefly you can. what was it? why was it so important? so, you know, i started again by looking this sale, and i think it would be helpful to tell. just a quick story that will make you understand how i got from the sale. the larger 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 folks are going to say, oh, no, 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 compelling,

introduce families that people might want to read about. so when i talk about the 272 and how i got to georgetown and then the catholic church, i 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, virginia. and if you had there, you would have seen them. scores of people being loaded onto a ship, forcibly loaded elderly people, parents, children babies, witnesses described people to their knees, weeping, begging for mercy. 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 larger slave holders in maryland. and they were selling these folks when times got hard, as people did because they were their most assets and they wanted save this school. and as started digging and realizing okay wow hey i happened to be black and 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 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 sales built, you know, the first archdiocese, the first cathedral, early convents

priests, operated plantations and sold. who built the first catholic seminary. so the underpinnings 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 the united as we know 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 interweave the various forms of oppression have been and i found that very very interesting and. of course upsetting. but could you talk a little bit about the catholic and its attitude toward indigenous people and how the attitude toward indigenous and a 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 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 have souls. and we want to nurture their souls. but we're we're about 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 talking, about the responsibilities of, slaves and masters. when europeans went into and

then into the americas, they enslaved indigenous people. initially and there were protests by priests in rome said, okay, we won't do that but about. but there still this insatiable need for labor. and so africans filled that 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 they were persecuted. 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 always voices who

raised questions the. priests. there were priests all the way who had concerns it and also one of the other things that i found about the book is how at times 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 do 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 it's

interesting. 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 who are viewed as property. so what you're looking for. 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 dishes, and the list of the human beings. so that's sobering and then i'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 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 she holds on to the one thing that she has 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 her family her descendants resist. some of them are one of the two 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

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 for not that. there is an where of two families a priest decided two families who 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 schools. black children. some of their descendants are catholic to this day and those record, it's actually sacramental records have been really important to genealogies and to myself in terms of tracking these families and, you know, and these descendants who are among us now, many of them still catholic, have been in the forefront of pressing the church and georgetown recognize this history. so i look at those folks and in a crazy way, you know, i find some inspiration there.

i see folks who said to 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 to make it that way. and to me, that inspire me. so i'm still going. mm hmm. i want to remind you that this 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 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 and what you 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 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 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 interested in whether was there any part of 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 career. local courts and federal 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, but i, i think i've also been someone who always loved a good mystery and 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 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 all together. and then i got to this cemetery. 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 the day in the 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 i need get another degree. he's like, maybe 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 weird thing 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. that's okay. yes, 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 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 is in the course of your research, what did think? what did you 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 question. 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, the 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 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, journals and

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 who was shipped to louisiana and 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 unfortunately, that was not something that happened to. the two sisters who were split by the sale, but his his experience was was very helpful. and you get to hear his voice, which is helpful. thank you. yeah. 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 church organization more than both of these are? how is that? and i think you're talking about indigenous boarding schools. yeah. yeah. i i'm glad mentioned that 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, indigenous people were so beautifully treated because we are now seeing. right. right. the in which you know the the the the operative frade phrase was sort of kill the indian 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 like there parallels there. well i could see the parallel 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. yeah. and destroying their culture and the same and substituting your own because you've determined that it's superior. i was thinking of 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 know slaves i mean they 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. where are you going 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 cardinal who the cardinal of the district of columbia is now, he was defrocked and now being he's been re indicted and for what he did and like do these people have no shame? i mean, it's okay to sell slaves. it's okay to molest kids. i don't know what is the religion? 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 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 storyline of, 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 out. so my my book doesn't deal at 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 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 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 know, it is an ugly, ugly history. there's no way around it. and the reason why it shocked me was because enslaved people have been left largely out of the story that the catholic traditionally tells about itself. and that's that's true. it's also true, though and important to note that as i mentioned before that there were priests who raised questions and concerns about this. and it's important because one 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, you know, 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 family 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 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 the woods, the ships leave. take her sister and another sister away, other family members away. and then luisa and her mother to the plantation where they are

welcomed back by joseph carberry into slavery, where they remain luisa she's one of the last people in the records owned by enslaved by the jesuits. so it was a complicated situation. 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 to join our conversation? so hello. hi. my name is kyla mathews and the fourth great granddaughter of louisa mahoney. i'm also a rising well at georgetown law right now and. and from i've experienced i would say that the universal d is more responsive or they tend to be more reactive than

proactive given their accountability efforts and are especially motivated by press and media. so i'm wondering from the point of view of a journalist, what you think the most effective way to kind of keep a like preserve this narrative and keep attention 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 offer or what is in effect legacy 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 more these descendants and they had a referendum and said you know we will tax ourselves in effect we will institute a fee to raise money for for descendants because they felt that the 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 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, 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 needs to happen. you know, i'm journalist so, you know, i'm not in advocacy. you know, i'm not laying. yeah, that's not what i do. but certainly can say from from and just in the story, you know, pressure from students and raising attention 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 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 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 among institutions and municipalities around the country to acknowledge and try to grapple with this history. we're 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 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 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 and you can imagine kind of what it might be like to find out this kind history that your ancestors were sold to save this institution. people, i like to say people wept, raged, and then they organized. and i think that organization 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 about the even teaching history that this kind of history in institutions not just you know

colleges and in people being you know fired. that's right. you know, showing classic works. i think you talked about the fact that you started this work. you know, your book, your your initial article landed 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 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 a battleground right now and particularly history involving race and history 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 now. did it feel dangerous, though? no. i mean, there are i have either

colleagues of yours who no longer allow their addresses 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 might not be the same in other places and so yeah, i think i think as journalists i think we all are more mindful than we might have been a couple of years ago. certainly i should say that 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, it feels it feels urgent. you know, i can't shy away from

from doing the work, but i'm also 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 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 getting angry. 45 minutes or less, i furious. so typically 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 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 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? will they 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 come across a 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 know if if i don't look 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 again a journalist

to be able to tell the story need to kind of put myself there. so i've had conversations my son who's a teenager and you know 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 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 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 anything.

i did not know about these people. so i was very motivated and inspired to tell story that i felt had not been told in 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 would 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 my purview, but you're right that a lot of institutions are going to be trying to figure out what 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 know, because some of her books are so 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 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 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 went back and forth about, well, i know you're from the south, yada, yada, yada. make this story short because i'm long 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 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, 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 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 families 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 go and 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 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 have been devastated. we looked up. i mean, catholics say it was 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 this day. my entire family had to think through it, talk myself through it. but this is what i want to know. and just 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 think about they wouldn't want you to 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 people were hiding that they just 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 the plantations. yeah, well, i feel like there's a book in you and you might consider everybody telling me you kill her. 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 at newtown manor 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 idea what that was until this happened. and i think he was talking about the good you for sharing that. yeah. and can we have you join us? 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 these. yeah right and the interaction

you had because you have this exposure and everyone particularly 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 endowment 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 be having a dialog with them have you had that in 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 are people and say this is just one portion. yeah so you know again 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 universities it's just the catholic church it's other religious organizations. it's banks. it's insurance. i want to create a digital archive where the data sets of those records are available so that journalists, scholars community members, families can see them and then take the steps that they want to take that

communities 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 you saying that there was no actual direct interaction with did the diocese with you know yeah i don't not 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 for people? do want to take it further? that's you know, there's a similar project. it's interesting in the united kingdom where, the people who whose vast fortunes, including members of the royal family, were built on, particularly in the islands and very interesting to see these folks reckoned with. in fact, there was a journalist who actually left the bbc, when she realized 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 do both so. she has now decided that that is going to be her focus. focus? yes, ma'am. i thought we can we can just pull it down. yeah, yeah. just. okay, just i'm just just. yeah, just talk, okay? just so they 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 that article was a million question, which i had at the time and 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 emotional because my family was 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 cousin julie 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 story breaking is that we are reunion

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 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 so much. and i think this will be our final 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 her thoughts with us. 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 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 back gently 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 built the new 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 the papal yes these people. no, i know. okay. but what you said earlier that that the somewhat you know, they had 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. 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 what the when they came and 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 thing. 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 terms of, you know, enslaving people. 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 this the 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 sell sign some books. but i just was wondering if could just ask you to kind of leave us with a thought. i mean, there's so much here. there's so much it's as 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 broken apart by violence. families brought together through love and persistence. and i just. yes. wondering about that. thanks. but i 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 comes mind? what 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 you? i'm i think it's important for 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 you know, i'm very engaged with 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. if there's if the ceo is handing you a financial record you're asking questions, ask questions. the history that you've been taught. why is it that you don't things and and i think just 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