Education

Georgetown Slave Descendants Want A BILLION Dollar Reconciliation Fund

YouTube screengrab/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCZMhs_xpjc

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Blake Neff Reporter
Font Size:

The descendants of slaves sold by Georgetown University are calling on the school to create a billion-dollar “Reconciliation Fund,” one week after the school apologized for its role in the slave trade and promised several (much cheaper) efforts to make up for it.

In 1838, Georgetown sold off 272 slaves in order to pay its debts, selling them for $115,000 (over $3 million in today’s money). In recent years, the school has faced demands from activists who want it to atone for its actions almost 180 years ago.

A week ago, following the release of a report on the matter, Georgetown president John DeGioia announced Georgetown would offer a special admissions preference for any descendants of the 272 slaves the school sold. He also promised to build an on-campus memorial and renamed two buildings, one after a slave sold by the school and another after a woman who founded a local school for black girls. (RELATED: Georgetown May Have Students Atone For Slavery Via Walk Of Shame)

The school’s decision to confront the more sordid parts of its past won praise from some quarters, though several black writers criticized the move as hopelessly insufficient.

But some descendants of the 272 slaves told The Washington Post the school’s recent announcements aren’t enough. They want more. Much more. A billion dollars more.

“We appreciate the gestures of a proposed memorial to our enslaved ancestors on Georgetown’s campus and President John DeGioia’s visits with some descendants, but recommendations developed without the meaningful participation of descendants can only be seen as preliminary,” descendant Sandra Green Thomas said in a Thursday statement.

Thomas and other descendants have a much bolder vision than just extracting an apology from Georgetown. They want to set up a billion-dollar, national foundation that would be a leader in “the issue of truth and reconciliation.”

Advocates say the foundation isn’t a matter of reparations, because the foundation would ideally benefit the whole country.

“Our vision is not about reparations,” said Joseph Stewart, another advocate for the descendants. “It’s not about getting anything that just benefits descendants. It’s about having an opportunity to have a common good.” Despite the bold plans, it’s not entirely clear what the huge foundation would actually do.

The descendants say they’ve managed to raise $115,000 (matching the un-inflated original sales price of the slaves), but they need Georgetown’s money and backing to make the ten-figure foundation a reality.

While Georgetown is a wealthy university, a foundation of that size would be a massive commitment. As of 2015, the school’s endowment was $1.5 billion, substantially smaller than comparable top 25 schools such as Notre Dame, Duke University, and second-tier Ivies such as Brown University.

Both Georgetown and the Maryland province of the Jesuit religious order, where operates the school, have responded with cautious statements that say they are open to working with the descendants but don’t offer any specific support to the planned foundation.

Send tips to blake@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel