we are so excited to.

be here to celebrate. rachel il swarns for the 272 the families who were enslaved and sold to build th american cathic 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 o 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 pfessor of journalism at new york university who writeabout race and race relations as a contributing writer for e new york times. her articles about georgetown university's ros in slavery

touched off a national conversation and about america's universi days and their ties to this painfuleriod in history. her work has been recognized, raised and supported bthe national endowment, the humanities, the four org ford foundation, the leon levy nter for biography, the biographers international organized nation, among others. as a correspondent for the times swarns reported from rsia, cuba, guatemala a southern africa and cered immigration and presidential politics and michelle obama in her le 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tapestry the story of the black, white and multiroom racial ancestors of michelle obama and the coauthor of unseen, unpublished black history.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 wk's news. she has spent more than 25 years as a journalist and has been honored by numerous organizations. and now please join me in welcoming to politics and prose. rachel ellsworth burns and michel martin, who. friendly amendment, a host of moing edition sorry. thank you. friendly amendment. a host of morning edition there are four of us. not get me in trouble when i go back to work on monday. welcome d 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 aicle and then a book

comes out if there's more to say, do you ever lik 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 startein 2015. students were protesting at georgetown. they were concerned about two buildings that carry the names of two of thpriests who happened to be early presidents who had orchestrated this sale.

and the administration changed the mes 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 27 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 th 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 th guy said there weren't. and so this g, richard cellini, said to himself, that makes up no sense. and richard was someone he's a white guy, ceo of a ch 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. busine reporter rather and said, heyou 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'tanahashi coates had done his case for reparations, but it wa't the kind of reporting that we typicallyo. but she remembered that there was someo on the staff who had mit have a sense of this and she rembered 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 slaver shaped americanamilies and. i thought that this would be the next step to look at how slavery shaped o of ouelite

institutions. so but what i didn't know was, you know, who who were e 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 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, lks. 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 realeople 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 amongs today who are directly connected to this story, will you show yourself so can the descendants? yeah. can u stand can we welcome you and honor you. thank you for being here. i thanyou for being here. what d you she just said, say what you just said t we're still here. my fily in southern illinois right? yeah. and we are glad you're still here. thank you for being here.

thank you for allong 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 erican catholic church. as briefly as you can. what was it? why was so important, so, you know, i started again by looking athis 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 thinas a journalist, i'm not a historian. i often think about wn 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 w 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, parent 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 digginand reizg, 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 lookg at the priests and looking at this history and what i learned was it wasn't just georgetown, the jesuits ilt the early catholic church, first in the british colony. and then in early america. and these priests who relied on slave labor and sla sales built, you know, the first archdiocese, the first cathedral, all early convents

priests who operated plantatis 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 writen the ok, without the enslaved e 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 ok is that yodescribe how oression led oppression the entire how interweave the various forms of oppression he been and i found that very,ery interesting. and of crse, uetting. but could you tala little bit about the catholic church and its attitude toward indigenous people and h the attitude toward indigenous people and a kind of a a transformation of its attitude tard indigenous

people kind of led to its accept sense of the enslavement of people of african desnt, which i found really fascinating. one ofhe 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. whenuropeans 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'do that. but about but there was still this insatiable need for labor. and so africans filled that gap and the church rome remaine 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 alys 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 persecut, 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 oncagain they turned to afrins 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 w 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 whare viewed as property. so that's wh you're looking for. you're loong for tax here. you're looking for property. you see these estate records that list, younow, the coffee tables, the tablecloths the pigs, the dishes and the list of thhuman beings. so that's sobering. and then i'm going toass right here. so but, u know, i think what has been interesting to me is the families themselves and the experience of the families

themselves i ll 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 arriv and she's a free person. she's indentured servant whose freedom stolen. she's foed into slavery by catholicentry. but she holds on to the one thing that she has, which her story. and she tel who will listen that shehould 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, so of them, when their freedom that way, some of them don't harry mahoney saves the church s

wealth in the war of 1812 and garners pledge from the jesuits thatis he neither he nor his family will ev be sold. and that's a pledgehat's broken in 1838. so. at times the priests were quiet and black people to go to mass to participaten 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 inidelity be punished. he sold their children. and so after the civil war, what d famies do? you can ask, you know, would you stay catholic after your yr? the priest said split up your family and so folks intereingly you know people a number of people stayed a number of people left thousands left

because. the church remained segregated afterwards. but meers of this mahony family, many of them stayed not only they stay, but they became lay leaders. some of themecame 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 n schools for black children. some of their descendantare catholic to this day. and those rerd it's actually those sacrental 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 opressing the church. and geoe to recognize this history. i look those folks and in a azy way, you know, i find

inspiration there. i see folks who said to themselves, church does not belong to the nful men who are in it. this church, they don't control d. they don't control, you know, the son, the holy spirit, none of tt. and and it washeir 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 righ now, not what happened. 304 hundred years ago. so i was just interested in whether wathere any part of yourself that you had to to sort of transform from in order to do this workr you had to change your practice in some w or there was a loof learning involved. i reized 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 journali. so records have been like kind

of important to and interesting to me. so learning. i had to learn a wle swath of of records. but i, i think, i've also been someone who ways loved a good mystery and the hunt for me is really, really interesti and it was really when i got started on article tt led me to the book about michelle obama. i was searching forer great great grandfather. who was born into slavery and was biracial. and i had gone to a cemetery and i was amazed. i could to the archives and find where he was buried. the plot, you know, the number who wasext? him. i thought, you know, i, i had everything i had it all together and th i got to this cemetery and it was in birmingham. and this old, glected african american cemetery with the grass up to my knees and the tombstones. and many of you may kw that even the dead were segregated. righin the day in the south.

so i spe an entire day there, completely unsuccessful. i never found his tombstone, but therwas 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 anothedegree. h'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 ter that story and he said, okay, that's the thing. and so that's that's what it was just kind this ion't know, this weird thing tt 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 conversatio

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 nathan weisler, and i'm a recent graduate of montgomery college and now live oveeas and i'm hoping to teach american history in schools orseas. 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 particul about the and in particur 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, t 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 years a slave who was a free black ithe north, who was kidnaped, sold back into slavery and of course, the southern had immize 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 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 happed 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 en

reading about the other scandal which brokabout catholic children. well, there is an overlap that 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 churchrganization more than both of these ohow was that and think you're talking abt the indigenous. yeah. boarding school. yeah yeah, i, i'm glad you mention that because i wouldot want my sort of introduce of that subject about oppression leading to oppression, the different views for people tthink that, you ow, indigenous people were so beautifully because we are now seeing righ 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. allight 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 e certainly feels like there are parallels. there. well, i could see the parallel beg 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 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 culre 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 waed to mention to the guy from politics and prose that also waon 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 goi? this? well, i'm just saying then you i mean, it is sort of shocking that actually stay catholic when they hear all 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 wt 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 y of the slaves, yo know, i mean, many slaves we impregnated and and things like that. so does anof this come into your storyline of, you know, some o these people are prably descendants of some of the slaveowners. maybe it was even the priests any of this ever come out. so my my bo doesn't deal at all with the scandals in the church. you know, and there is a lot work in journalism, very important workn 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'just the catholic

chch. episcopal church, all t protestant church, baptists mean it was this was this was sadly, it was what was happening at the time but, you know, it isn ugly, ugly historyhere's no way around it. and the reason why it shocked me was, because enslaved people haveeen 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 we priests who raised questions and concerns about this. and it's important because one thing that you often heawhen you're talking about slavery is '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 c't bring your 21st centuryudgments to

it. but the tth is that within the catholic at the time there were priests who were raising questions. ere were priests who were protesng. there re priests who you know. one of the prits i wte about in the book is a guy by the name of jeph carberry, who ran a plantation and where this mahoney was enslaved and when he learned that the sale wa coming, he objected. and when he was overruled and when theraders came, he encouraged members of thfamily to run. now what's complicate it aut that? you know, i'm think, oh, gosh. joseph carrry awesome. but some of the mahoney's ran i ntioned 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

turn 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' within the purview the reporting that 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 experienc, i would say that the university is more responsive or they tend

to be more reactive than proactive tive a 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 narrativend 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,o, 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 e 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 raisi attention, issues involving has certainly drawn attention. and you know, in covering

instition 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 t 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 pa 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 we sold to save this institution. people i like to say peopl 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 momentf backlash about the even teach ing history that this kind of history in institutions,

not just, you know, colleges and in people ing, 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 bk 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 invoing race and history involving, you know, the teaching about race d slavery. and for me, evenhen i first wrote thafirst article in 2016, this kind of work felt urgent. it feels en more urgent to me now. did it feel dangerous, though?

no. mean there are i have either colleagues of yours o. no longer allow their addresses to be known. 'veone interviews with them where they won't let us, what city they're in because of fea the threats to their families and chilen thaa fact. right. so right. i'm just curious if right so if feels if it feels similarly fraught presenng this work. i mean this is a very the people you' come here voluntarily you are clrly very interested in open and receptive to. you know what rachel has to say and the work that e has done. i guarantee you it might not be the same in other. and so yeah, i think i think we as journalists, i ink we all are more mindf than we might have been a couple of years ago. certainly, i should say that members of my family have though about, you know, and worried a bi about it in terms of, you know, where this lands and how people respond. but as said, you know, to me, it feels it feelsrgent.

and, you know, i can't shy away from from doing the work. but i'm also and and minul and careful, sir. myame 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 wondful day and. 15 minutes unless can really get into the story and 30 minutes or less. i stted getting angry 45 minutes or less. i was furious. so tically piggyback on so of the comments. if 45 minutes were left, i g that angry. how do you do your research without reading your teeth along the way and with the universities th's widespread.

who'd from slavery with affirmative action dision coming down soon right. how do the universities are compelled since races the focal point with the decision if it comes down against affirmative action, how does at handcuff the university's ease with this legacy issue that exposed? is ithis a of a sudden a different nd 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, yoknow 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. me across a document i read something and i just i just have toust i just stop. i have to take a breath and close my eyes and take another breath and i going because w 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 whai

do, i think, again, as a journali to be able tell the story, i need toind of put myself there. so i've conversations with my son, w's a teenager. and, you know, i think about those sisters, louisand anna and the priest telling them, you've got to run. and i had two children, young children. they h elderly parents what do you do? do you run? what do you d you know, i, you know, those things weigh on me, you know. but but the ing that's important to know, though,oo, is that this is a storyf heartbreak for se. but it is also a story of resistance and struggl it's also a story ofamily and faith and remember that i came to this as someone, a catholic woman who had neveheard that catholic enslaved anybod

i had never heard anythg. i did not know about these people. so i very motivated and to tell a story that i felt had not been told. enslav 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 disturbi. d so the details and i said, is it rd 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 sohern maryland. mom was from st mary's. dad was from charles. i grew up strictly catholic where i came from in southern marylandike she said earlier, where we'rerom, 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. cathol catholicism wasn't it wasn't religion for us. it was our way of life. i didn't hear th story until about 2015. i on ancestry and our history was we're from here. we were from southern maryland, noere else. i kept connecting to someone down in louisiana and alabama and we went back and forth about, wl, i know you're from the deep south, yada, yada make the sty short because long wind 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 e students there because of the story started doing their own resear 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 m 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 caolics 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 fact, i'll go ahead and do my little stint now. but we're doing i got money from georgetown, me and a team 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 lo. but my family. we have etonians, i have bona. she knows the surnames. i'm a hawkin 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 thoughtbout 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 ki 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. theyn 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 i anas 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. everybodkeeps 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 me 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, ty sold some of us down e river. right. and i had no idea what that was til this. and i think he w 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 jourlists 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 ts 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 bacsure know what your position okay and even though you say you're a journalist, at 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 whatevethis is not compared to what happened to the people in maryland. so i'm wondering, becse you have the what the direct. line to be having a dialog with them have you had at in what. if you have had it, wt was the

outcome or what is being actually done right? it's not what ty' giving the people that are enaved because america, most of us are people. we'ren say this is just one portion. yeah. soyou know, again, i am a journal so i don't get involved with, you know, directing policy or even advocate for things wh, 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 digil archive of that would it's not just universitiest' not just the catholic church, other religious organizations. it's banks, it's insurance companies. i want to create a digital archive where thdata sets of. thosrecords 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 nomy 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, ion't not certainly not in terms of. no one's asking me you none from the catholic church is askinge or hey rach swarns what should we d or like it's just not the le that i play. it's not okay. yeah. so you just wrote the book. so this is exposure for that. doant to take it further, right? you know, there's a similar project it's ve interesting in the united kingdom where, the people who wse vast fortunes, incling members of the royal, were built on enslavement, particularly in the islands. and it' very interesting to see these folks reckon with, in fact, there was a journalist who actually left the bb when she realized that, you know that's

so interesting. yeah. who once she realize that you know her family had beeand she wanted tdig 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 2016fter the article with, the breaking big article. we has mixing. oh, by the way, my name is rochelle prater, but wanted to thank you because i, i know the title that articlwas a million questions, which i had at the time. and thank god a lot of tm have been answered. but the point i wanted to make

clear, i said something to you in an article that i felt liki won the lottery and. for those people who may look at that article and read that article, i wan to share is the emotional because my family was some of the family that was to louisiana and how i won the lotty. i've had so much in my life. fami loss there's gone and would have loved to havenown 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 eacother these families that were split by the sale have found eachther. 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 at 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 tnk 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 sres 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 peninsu, 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 nave 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 rt 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 pressed 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 thg 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, vy explicit abouwhat their intentions were and why they were dng bh terms of rome, in terms of, you know, enslaving people. you s part of conquest in and about, you know, about money and and wi 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 jesuitsould need money to do it. and this washe 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 understa you're going to si signs and also sign some books, but i just was wondering if i could jus ask to kind of leave us with a concluding thought. i mean, there's so muchere.

the's so much. it's just, as you said, it'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 fily and coming, families broken aparty violence. families brought together through love and psistence. and i just. yes, wondering aut that. but i and you said that so nicely yoursf. 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 lo 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

unrstand that this is our history. i think the work th 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 witthis 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