Almost two centuries after Georgetown University profited from the sale of 272 slaves, it will embark on a series of steps to atone for the past, including awarding preferential status in the admissions process to descendants of the enslaved, officials said Wednesday.
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At its heart, the programme will seek to atone for the money the university took from the sale of 272 African American slaves – women, men and children – who were sold in 1838.
According to the newspaper, Harvard University, Brown University and more than a dozen other college institutions have recognized their historic ties to slavery.
DeGioia said he isn’t concerned about financial limitations of the initiative. As well as working on the plantations, slaves also worked on campus, many of them hired from wealthy students. Georgetown’s statement says the school “intends to engage descendants both on campus and in the cities and communities where they live”.
In 1838, in order to keep fledgling Georgetown University alive, Jesuit priests sold.272 slaves.
And, the report suggests, the school should give descendants of people owned by the Maryland Jesuits “an advantage in the admissions process”.
Like many colleges of the era, which offered the equivalent of college-prep coursework, Georgetown later evolved into a full-fledged college, then a university, with a law school, medical school and other professional specialties. “I think we’re in a critical moment in our country about race relations and about navigating the long-term consequences of inequality”. “It’s taking steps that a lot of universities have been reluctant to take”.
“Over the past several months, university officials at Georgetown have openly spoken about the role that slaves played in keeping it afloat in its early years”.
The group was also tasked with making recommendations on how best to acknowledge and recognize the university’s history with slavery and creating events and opportunities for open conversation.
“I hope that what we’re doing has a lasting impact”, said history professor Adam Rothman, who helped lead the research group. On Thursday, DiGioia announced that those buildings will be named after Isaac, the enslaved man whose name is the first mentioned in documents of the sale, and Anne Marie Becraft, a free African-American woman who founded a school for black girls in the Georgetown neighborhood in 1827.
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Georgetown administrators are also planning a number of changes and additions to the school as part of its effort to address and make amends for its slaveholding legacy.
