hurt? this is how tomorrow brighter than today. the museum is elevated to honor and respect land on which we stand. we are the dreams of our ancestors. we are what. they fought for. we are why they fought to be free. we are their legacy. and they are why we must continue to fight for truth and hope. we are the alma alma. we thank you for being here with us today to celebrate the grand opening the international african-american, which is now open. and we welcome you and we welcome future generations. thank you all.

we are so excited to. be here to celebrate. rachel il swarns for the 272 the families who were enslaved and sold to build the american catholic church. in 1838, a group of america's most prominent catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, which is now georgetown university. in this groundbreaking account, professor swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude 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 writer for the new york times. her articles about georgetown university's roots in slavery touched off a national conversation and about america's university days and their ties to this painful period in history. her work has been recognized, raised and supported by the national endowment, the humanities, the four org ford foundation, the leon levy center for biography, the biographers international organized nation, among others. as a correspondent for the times swarns reported from russia, cuba, 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 multiroom racial ancestors of michelle obama and the coauthor of unseen,

unpublished black history. the new york times photo archives. swarns will be joined in conversation session 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 into 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 ellsworth burns and michel martin, who. friendly amendment, a host of morning edition sorry. thank you. friendly amendment. a host of morning edition there are four of us. do not get me in trouble when i go back to work on monday. welcome and welcome home, neighbor. it's nice to have you back in back in d.c..

quite a journey. you know, when. well, how many of you read her 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. 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 it 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 to be sitting alongside you and to see you for so many years. so i think it might be useful to talk a little bit about how i even came to this story and it started in 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 the administration had been considering, changing the names even before that. but the the protest caught the eye of a georgetown alum, a ceo of a tech company in 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 to 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 he said they all died like nearly 300 people. they all died. no descendants. and that seemed implausible to him. there were certainly other 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 up no sense. and richard was someone he's a white guy, ceo of a tech company, a republican guy who had not been involved in racial justice issues in any way before, but he loved georgetown. and he said, you know, like, i think we kind of oh, you, you know, something to these people. we the existence is connected to these people. and so he hired a team of genealogists who started digging and trying to find descendants.

and then he reached out to a colleague of mine at the times who was 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 1830 that benefited georgetown. and she was kind of like, okay, interesting. is that even a story? and so it is my great, great fortune that she didn't just delete the email. i mean, you have to remember, this was before the 1619 project. you know, this kind of reporting wasn't tanahashi 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 of this and she remembered the book i had done about michelle obama's ancestors tracing her enslaved back to the 1800s. so she forwarded the email to me and i knew immediately i knew it was a story. my reporting.

michelle obama's ancestors had allowed me to explore how slavery shaped american families and. i thought that this would be the next step to look at how slavery shaped one of our elite institutions. so but what i didn't know was, you know, who 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, 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. 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 that an institution that he cares deeply is deeply enmeshed in it, and he digs into his pocket, does some work, and then reaches out to you and your

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 do just what i always tell my interns, answer the mail, please, please, please, please don't read your email. please do read your email and i would say ask like a very fundamental question, which was just who were and what were their names, you know, this is the quote from a book you said this is not a disembodied group of people who are nameless and faceless. these are real people with real names and real descendants. and that's what that was his quote that's what he that's what he said. 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 being here. i thank you for being here. what did you she just said, say what you just said to. 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 of the american catholic church. as briefly as you can. what was it? why was so important, so, you know, i started again by looking at 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 to the larger picture. and to do that, i just want to tell a story which i tell a 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 who are going to say, oh, no, no, thank, 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 is the best way to get people to hear is to tell a story that's compelling, to 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 to 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 been there, would have seen them scores of people being loaded on to a ship forcibly loaded elderly people, parents, children, babies, witnesses describe people

falling 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 shipped, you know, down south. they were owned by the nation's most powerful jesuit priests. as you heard before, who happened to be among the slave holders in maryland. and they were selling these folks when times got hard, as people did, because they were their most prized assets and they wanted to save this school. and as i 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 save, 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, all early convents priests who operated plantations and sold people built the first catholic seminary. so the underpinnings of the church were built by priests who were deeply, deeply involved in slavery. you write in the book, without the enslaved the catholic church in the united states as we know it today would not exist. that's right. one of the things that also struck me about the book is that you describe how oppression led 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 church and its attitude toward indigenous people and how the attitude toward indigenous people and a kind of a a transformation of its attitude toward indigenous people kind of led to its accept sense of the enslavement of people of african descent, which i found really fascinating. one of the things that's really fascinating about the catholic and its we should be very clear that it's not just the catholic church, right? it's protestant churches to you know, it's slavery's foundational for a lot of things. but the catholic priests, you know, there were white people who viewed black people as animals. a purely catholic said, okay, no, we think they have souls and we want to nurture their souls, but we're okay about enslaving them and selling their bodies. and people say how is that possible? and what did rome have to say?

and that's what michel is getting at. and it's slavery is an ancient practice, as we know. it's in the bible. the jesuits often pointed to it. saint paul talking about the response abilities of slaves and masters. when europeans went into africa 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 was still this insatiable need for labor. and so africans filled that gap and the church rome remained silent about africans, too. and if you also want to look at you know, 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 establishments of society, slavery was part of establishment society. that's that's what it was. and and they became part of that. it's important to know, though, that there were always voices who raised questions. the priests. there were priests. all along the way who had concerns about it. and also one of the other things that i found fascinating about the book is how at times when catholics were persecuted, not well, persecuted, done rapture, if that's the right word, but marginalized within the politics of maryland they turned to because protestants wouldn't work for them once again they turned to africans in order to save their properties and their their kind of livelihoods and you share that you are also you identify as catholic from birth assume yeah cradle catholic.

so do you do you mind if i ask how this recording how did it influence your kind of faith walk do 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 you know i'm going through these records and some of these records are 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 that's what you're looking for. you're looking for tax here. you're looking for property. you see these estate records that list, you 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 here. so but, you know, i think what has 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 angie 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 stolen. she's forced into slavery by catholic gentry. but she holds on to the one thing that she has, which is her story. and she tells who will listen that she should have been free and that her her liberty was stolen. and she tells her children that her grandchildren that that story has passed on. people in her family, her

descendants resist. some of them are, one or two of them killed and overseer and executed. they go to court. they sue the jesuits, some of them, when their freedom that way, some of them don't harry mahoney saves the 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 in 1838. so. at times the priests were quiet and black people to go to mass to participate in the sacraments. there were penalties for not doing that. there is an instance where of two families, a priest decided that two families who had engaged in fidelity be punished. he sold their children. and so after the civil war, what

did families do? you can ask, you know, would you stay catholic after your year? the priest said split up your family and so folks interestingly you know people a number of people stayed a number of people left thousands left because. the church remained segregated afterwards. but members of this mahony family, many of them stayed not only they stay, but they became lay leaders. some of them became religious leaders, and they worked to make the church true to its ideals of being a universal church. they set up black parish is to joined, became nuns and ran schools for black children. some of their descendants are catholic to this day. and those record it's actually those sacramental records have been really important to genealogy and to myself in terms of tracking these families and you know and these descendants who are among us many of them

still catholic have been in the forefront of pressing the church. and george to recognize this history. i look those folks and in a crazy way, you know, i find 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 don't control, you know, the son, the holy spirit, none of that. and and it was their church. and they decided to make it that. and to me, that inspires me. so i'm still going. one, i want to remind you that this is a conversation that we cannot participate in. there's only sadly there's one mic there. and i hate to make this a fitness, but my recommendation would be that we're going to to questions from you in just a minute. two. so if you have one that you want to share if you would perhaps

begin making your way to the microphone and what you've mentioned that you're not an historian, but, you know, historians and journalists are basically in conversation each other. and i'd like to ask, you know, we call it the first draft of history. and you all that i don't i don't know what the appropriate digital term would be. the personal history. i'm not sure what the right is that even first. you know, not even using that word of. but what was the most i don't know as a this wasn't really how you got started in journalism, right? you get started in journalism kind of chronicle what's around you right now, 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 transform from 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 that there was so much about american history, even as a reasonably educated

person that i just didn't know. i've always been a records person. i covered courts early in my career, local courts, federal courts. so i've always been a records person as a journalist. so records have been like kind of important to and interesting to me. so learning. i had to learn a whole swath of 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 it was really when i got started on article that led me to the book about michelle obama. i was searching for her great great grandfather. who was born into slavery and was biracial. and i had gone to a cemetery and i was amazed. i could go to the archives and find where he was buried. the plot, you know, the number who was next? him. i thought, you know, i, i had everything i had it all together and then i got to this cemetery

and it was in birmingham. and this old, neglected african american cemetery with the grass up to my knees and the tombstones. and many of you may know that even the dead were segregated. right in the day in the south. so i spent an entire day there, completely unsuccessful. i never found his tombstone, but there was something about that. just something about that that that grabbed me. and i thought, you know, actually there is like 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 to get another degree. he's like, maybe not that. not that. and then i wrote this imagery of two kids is he's like, what are you doing? mentioned. but you know, when a publisher approached me after that story

and 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 that just kind of got me that i joke it's 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 graduate of montgomery college and i now live overseas and i'm hoping to teach american history in schools overseas. and that's something that really feel very passionately about. i, i began reading the book and one thing that struck me in particular was reading about the story of solomon northup and in particular and in particular about the and in particular about the very emotional details of his homecoming and.

what i was wondering is. what i was wondering is what i was wondering is in the course of your research, what you think too, what did you think was what did you believe to be among the most striking parallels and contrasts, the story of solomon northup and that of anna and evanna and louise of anna and louisa. okay. it's a good question. first, for those who solomon northup being, if you those of you saw 12 years a slave who was a free black in the north, who was kidnaped, sold back into slavery and of course, the southern had immunize 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 people is is that is

the material, frankly like really, really hard to 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 you're 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 wrote very vividly about a lot of things about what new orleans was like, 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 and you get to hear his voice, which is helpful.

thank you. yeah. hi, i'm my name as genuine visiting from new york great talk wondering i've also been reading about the other scandal which broke about catholic children. well, there is an overlap that is the thing i've been reading about the boarding schools and it's. a cavalry soldiers that said so was there overlap in terms of the same church organization more than both of these or how was that and think you're talking about the indigenous. yeah. boarding school. yeah. yeah, i, i'm glad you mention that because i would not want my sort of introduce of that subject about oppression leading to oppression, the different views for people to think that, you know, indigenous people were so beautifully because we are now seeing right. so the way in which, you know, the, the, the, the operative frade phrase was sort kill the indian to save the man. but jesus horrendous abuses that

people were subjected physically emotionally and. all right spiritually and all of that is is coming to light now, the truth is, i don't have an answer for you. i wish i did. i don't. but, you know, i can certainly see and ask the same kinds of questions because there are certainly feels like there are parallels. there. well, i could see the parallel being that that people 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 human. and if you're this level of human, this is what you get. i think that seems to be sort of all of a piece and and, you know, and tearing families apart. right? yeah. and destroying their culture the same way and substituting your own because you've determined that it's superior. other you others who would like to join us conversation.

i oh i just wanted to mention to the guy from politics and prose that also was on nightline for decades. right, right. i was 12. anyway, i guess i don't even know where to begin here, but, you know, selling slaves, i mean, they sold slaves stay in 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, but where are you going? this? well, i'm just saying then you i mean, it is sort of shocking that actually stay catholic when they hear all of this. i mean, even the cardinal who was the cardinal of the district of columbia, now, he was defrocked and now he's being he's been re indicted and for what he did and, it's like, do these people have no shame?

i mean, i it's okay to sell slaves. it's okay to molest kids. i don't know. what is it religion about? if this is what you do when you're a religious person? i don't know. i just you. 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 does any of this come into your storyline of, you know, some of these people are probably descendants of some of the slaves owners. maybe it was even the priests any of this ever come out. so my my book doesn't deal at all with the scandals in the church. you know, and there is 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 priests did, how they treated people. again, i'm mindful of the fact that it wasn't just the catholic church. episcopal church, all the protestant church, baptists 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 church 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're talking about slavery is we're studying slavery is people who say don't bring your immorality to the table here. it's it was legal. it was the time. so, you know, you can't bring your 21st century judgments to it. but the truth is that within the catholic at the time there were priests who were raising questions. there were priests who were protesting. there were priests who you know. one of the priests i write about in the book is a guy by the name of joseph carberry, who ran a plantation and where this mahoney was enslaved and when he learned that the sale was coming, he objected. and when he was overruled and when the traders came, he encouraged members of the family to run. now what's complicate it about that? you know, i'm think, oh, gosh. joseph carberry awesome. but some of the mahoney's ran i

mentioned the two sisters louisa and anna louisa runs with her mother. she hides the woods, the ships leave, take her sister and another sister away. other family members away, and then louisa and her mother return the plantation where they are welcomed back by joseph carberry into slavery, where they remain louisa remains. she's one of the last people in the records 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 deal with the sexual scandals. apologize. yes. and who else would like to join our conversation? so. hello. hi. my name is kyla mathews and i'm the fourth great granddaughter of louisa mahoney.

i'm also a rising to l at georgetown law right now and. and from what i've experienced, i would say that the university is more responsive or they tend to be more reactive than proactive tive and their accountability 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 tent like preserve this narrative and keep attention on this story would be just with a, you know, our collective attention spans the way it is. yeah so it's a good question and. just in case some of you don't know. so in 2016, one of the things that georgetown did was offer or what is, in effect, legacy status or 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 which is now coming online and then. created a fund. students actually protested and said, hey, you know, georgetown, you need to do more for 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 $400,000 a year for 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 jesuit 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 large just effort made by the roman catholic church in america. address this history. it has had a slow start. they have not as much money as they had hoped and. as 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 their own ideas about how this should look so question you ask is kind of how to kind of keep them focused on on what needs to happen. you i'm a journalist so you know i'm not in the advocacy. you know, i'm not laying. yeah, that's not what i do.

but i certainly can say from from experience and just in the story, you know, pressure from students and raising attention, issues involving has certainly drawn attention. and you know, in covering institution and we've done a lot of that, you know that sometimes can be i would say that know people georgetown has been criticized on all sides descendants by people who think they need to do more by alums who are like what are you doing and where why? where are you going with this? what is certainly true is that georgetown and the jesuits have been, you know, right in the thick of what is now 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.

you know, i never thought i would see. and the question you're asking is, you know, how do we make them do more? i think part of that is what what you guys have done is descendants, which was when my first story ran only the georgetown memory project. richard schilling, these independent nonprofit, had identified a handful of descendants. 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 of history that your ancestors were sold to save this institution. people i like to say people wept, people raged, and then they organized. and i think that organization and that pressure has, you know, had an impact. let me ask you this, though, because we've we've had two questions now about.

thank you for about, you know, history, teaching of history and what role that history should play in our current moment. you know, your book arrives at a moment of backlash about the even teach ing 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 you started this work. you know, your book, your your initial article landed before or some of the work that has become sort of polarizing, like the 6019 project for whatever 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 because 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 when 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. 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, what city they're in because of fear. the threats to their families and children that a fact. right. so right. i'm just curious if right so if feels if it feels similarly fraught presenting this work. i mean this is a very the people you've come here voluntarily 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. and so yeah, i think i think we 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, you 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. and, you know, i can't shy away from from doing the work. but i'm also and and mindful and careful, sir. my name is brett. and wednesday, i was driving to the grocery store. i decided to turn on fresh air with terry gross. and you are. and i was feeling great it was wonderful day and. 15 minutes unless i can really get into the story and 30 minutes or less. i started getting angry 45 minutes or less. i was furious. so typically piggyback on some of the comments. if 45 minutes were left, i got

that angry. how do you do your research without reading your teeth along the way and with the universities that's widespread. who'd from slavery with affirmative action decision coming down soon right. how do the universities are compelled since race is the focal point with the decision if it comes down against affirmative action, how does that handcuff the university's ease with this legacy issue that exposed? is is this all of a sudden a different kind of issue that they're going to have that the courts but the schools, will they be handcuffed now because of a decision when now we have legitimate reasons why this legitimacy is. 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. come across a document i read something and i just i just have to just i just stop. i have to take a breath and close my eyes and take another breath and i going because we need to know if i don't look and if i look away, then, you know, i think this work needs to be done. so you so i keep reading when you get up to 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 is heartbreaking. it's it's terrifying. i mean, some sometimes i what i do, i think, again, as a journalist to be able tell the story, i need to kind of put myself there. so i've conversations with my son, who's a teenager. and, you know, i think about those sisters, louisa and anna and the priest telling them, you've got to run. and i had two 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 on me, you know. but but the thing that's important to 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 and 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 very motivated and to tell a story that i felt had not been told. enslaved people had been left out of the. and so that what kept me going now on affirmative i was going to say that we've got about five who would love to be part of our conversation. yes you to a quick movie movie so you know i would say affirmative is colleges i'm a professor at nyu colleges all across the country are bracing for this and readying for it. it's not, you know, part of my purview but you're right that a lot of 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 story 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, as hard as it was to live them right. hi. how how is everyone this evening? my name is julie hawkins and is i am from southern maryland. my mom was from st mary's. my dad was from charles. i grew up strictly catholic where i came from in southern maryland like she said earlier, where we're from, that was the seat of catholicism. i know any of the religion until i left st county to go to college because everybody i grew up with was catholic. catholic catholicism wasn't it wasn't a religion for us. it was our way of life. so i didn't hear this story until about 2015. i on ancestry and our history was we're from here. we were from southern maryland, nowhere else. i kept connecting to someone

down in louisiana and alabama and we went back and forth about, well, i know you're from the deep south, yada, yada make the story short because long winded about 2016, i started hearing about the grew to seven to also my son was at gonzaga college school in washington d.c. which also benefited right which also benefited with the students there because of the story started doing their own research of the people at gonzaga. my son thomas's mom there talking about your home, st mary's and the priest, as he said. so old people from southern maryland. my grandmother had just we came from a family where i mean i had friends that would come down white friends that felt we were part italian because my grandmother would be saying the rosary every day. that's all we knew i mean, seriously, every day. no being if you needed something. she knew every saint to call to get you going. if you lost something of it. you know, you catholics know what i mean. it's not just the catholic,

okay, so bridget, celine is a friend of mine. i started talking to richard and he started filling me in along with other duties. 17. but here's the thing from people. 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 want to find them. as a matter of fact, i'll go ahead and do my little stint now. but we're doing i got money from georgetown, me and a team to do a gathering in maryland over labor day weekend. so anybody that would like to come who is a descendant, we would welcome you because the maryland side, we're still trying to figure out who are the people we lost. but my family. we have etonians, i have bona. she knows the surnames. i'm a hawkins. we have dorsey. have a mason and we're still in maryland. but let me tell you 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. so it was our way of life. when i found out i like someone just said, i cried, i became angry. and i even thought about 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 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 some kind of a plantation. these are the plantations. we never heard this story at all. i went to catholic school. everybody i had priest and nuns, and then i came from a community that was very you know, they honored their black history. they on it. we never heard this story. i've never heard of it. never we never heard it from the we never heard it from the jesuits. would i guess, you know, never think about they wouldn't want you to know. we never heard about it. i was even wondering, you know, like my grandmother, i was one and it was so much trauma. people were hiding that they just didn't talk about it. and as the generations went on, it just went away because i'm from south america, i'm from all these areas where the plantations were. yeah, well, i feel like there's

a book in you and you might consider. everybody keeps telling me, well, one you like that? did you have a specific question for rachel? you know, i just wanted to share that, but i did have the question. do you think it was that we did not know about this at all? so i think sometimes it was, you know, there's some some families where people have told me they thought their elders deliberately didn't tell them, i will say this, i don't mean to cut you off. my grandfather used to tell me in his family as she grew up at newtown manor, but they were free people of color right. but he used to tell me that his great grandmother would always say, you know, they sold some of us down the river. right. and i had no idea what that was until this. and i think he was talking about the good, too. so thanks for sharing that. yeah and can we have you join us? hi i'm lorraine carter. my question is quick. i'd like know because you are journalists and you say because you're a journalist, you're kind of director of your information

as far as being a journalist, what i wanted to know, once you started this book, once this book was exposed, what kind of dialog did you with the diet, the diaries that the these. yeah, right. and the interaction you had because now you have this exposure and everyone, particularly in america, this is a hidden story that is not being told. so you are telling the story and wanting to know as far as have i have looked back sure know what your position okay and even though you say you're a journalist, what is your position to bring to bring it further for more for the catholic church, just like georgetown an endowment and i understand giving out scholarships whatever this is not compared to what happened 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? it's not what they're giving the people that are enslaved because america, most of us are people. we're in say this is just one portion. yeah. so, you know, again, i am a journal so i don't get involved with, you know, directing policy or even advocate for things what, what i am very involved in and care 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 not just the catholic church,

other religious organizations. it's banks, it's insurance companies. i want to create a digital archive where the data sets of. those records are available so that journalists scholar, community members, families can see them and then take 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. and also so what you were saying that there was no actual direct interaction with the diocese with, you know. yeah, i don't not certainly not in terms of. no one's asking me you no one from the catholic church is asking me or hey rachel swarns what should we do? or like it's just not the role that i play. it's not okay. yeah. so you just wrote the book. so this is exposure for that. do want to take it further, right? you know, there's a similar project it's very interesting in the united kingdom where, the

people who whose vast fortunes, including members of the royal, were built on enslavement, particularly in the islands. and it's very interesting to see these folks reckon with, in fact, there was a journalist who actually left the bbc, when she realized that, you know that's so interesting. yeah. who once she realize that you know her family had been and she wanted to dig into it further she she couldn't do both. so she has now decided decided that that is going to be her focus. her focus? yes, ma'am. we can we can go just pull it down. yeah. yeah, just. okay, i'm just just. yeah, just talk, okay? just talk. okay. so they work. oh, rachel, i want to 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. oh, by the way, my name is

rochelle prater, but wanted to thank you because i, i know the title that article was a million questions, which i had at the time. and thank god a lot of them have been answered. but the point i wanted to make clear, i said something to you in an article that i felt like i won the lottery and. for those people who may look at that article and read that article, i want to share is the emotional because my family was some of the family that was to louisiana and how i won the lottery. i've had so much in my life. family loss there's gone and would have loved to have known this history and understood it. but now i have cousin julie. i have cousin peggy. i have cousin jeremy. i have cousin kevin porter. one of the things that has happened is that families have

now found each other these families that were split by the sale have found each other. so so that splits your efforts. that is the return on that story breaking is that we are reuniting and this is failure in african-american community. this typically doesn't happen and it continues to happen every day. and just like julie, our hearts beat at one on that goal, we go find as many as we and we 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 not only know on a national and a world level. thank you so much and i think this will be our final as you. yes. hello. and then after your ritual and i put you on the spot i'd like you to kind of give us a concluding fire after this lady shares her her thoughts with us. just give us something to take. i just want 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 that more records will be useful to. me too because that research is hard to do. and i also wanted to push back gently on this concept that it was oppression that bred oppression, giving the people bulls that came down centuries before. and the catholic that basically said enslaved to build the new world, just want to know what you think of that and know if you could just expand on that when you say that the papal. yes, these were i knew. okay. but what you said earlier that that the priests somewhat you know, they had to enslave people because they couldn't enslaved

native people, you know. no. well, first of all, let me just say that that that was not racialist phrasing. that was one 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 and afraid, so you then oppress somebody else because you're angry and afraid and a sort of i mean, given it as law, i'm just wondering, because the people bills were law once those came down, it just became the motive operation versus that being because you were oppressed in europe. i just think, you know, i just pushing back that, wondering your comments response 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 know, nice society be part of that it was kind of pushing them away, that kind of thing yeah so they they, i mean

they did talk about that know they didn't talk about, you know, wanting to be. the truth is, of course, that it was the economy me and that they were also you're absolutely right, very explicit about what their intentions were and why they were doing both terms of rome, in terms of, you know, enslaving people. you was part of conquest in and about, you know, about money and and with the sale even the priest who was pushing the hardest for it had a vision of 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 was the way that they were going to do it. i said, thank you. so, rachel, 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 sign signs and also sign some books, but i just was wondering if i could just ask to kind of leave us with a concluding thought. i mean, there's so much here. there's so much. it's just, as you said, it's a story of heartbreak. it's a story of love it's a story of resistance. it's a story of reunion. it's a story of a family and coming, families broken apart by violence. families brought together through love and persistence. and i just. yes, wondering about that. but i and you said that so nicely yourself. but i guess if would just kind of give us a concluding thought, like when do you would you put your you close your laptop night and when you thought about what this project has meant to you and to the families, what is it that comes to mind? what what do you what do you when you're going to go on to another project some point? but i'm just saying what, what has this meant to you? i'm i think it's important for

these folks, these folks who are long gone to be seen and and be recognized and to be acknowledged. and i think that it's important for us as american 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 engaged with the past, 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 of it that we interrogate history, 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 your 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 here. thank