Hello All:
So, Georgetown University is surviving and thriving as the result of having sold and participated in the slave trade. They are now a major university - revered in the nation and the world - having sold 272 Black people in the 1800s to finance the university, they are now considering raising $400,000 a year to help the descendants. It's interesting that the number 272 keeps being reiterated throughout the article, to make it appear as though it's a mere drop in the bucket, and $400,000 a year is a possible plausible compensation.
The answer in a word is : NO
But they knew that already. They knew it before the New York Times wrote the article. Financially speaking, $4,000,000 to $40,000,000 a year would make better sense - and be more like what is owed. If anyone thought the 272 initial Blacks sold into slavery was all you had to contend with, you are grossly and sadly mistaken.
However, the effort on the part of the Georgetown students to begin a process of compensation by assessing additional student fees to come up with the $400,000 is admirable - that should be utilized in addition to funds coming from the school itself.
To try to limit the sale of the slaves to today's equivalent of $3.3 million - is likewise ludicrous. Multiply that by the number of descendants from those 272 initial slaves and you're closer to a today figure of $333,000,000 in today's money currently owed - and it cannot all be channeled through institutional and education funding. Financial compensation still has to be made to the descendants who did the labor, who suffered the whips, who were raped, beaten, sold, and cross bred to make more slaves - many of whom probably reside in the DC, Maryland, Virginia triangle. So the $400,000 is necessary, but not sufficient in the compensation due our fore fathers and fore mothers, sisters and brothers.
Read the article below and give me your feedback:
eclecticallyblacknews@gmail.com
Stay Blessed &
ECLECTICALLY BLACK
Gloria Dulan-Wilson
Click on Link for full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/us/georgetown-slavery-reparations.html
Is Georgetown’s $400,000-a-Year Plan to Aid Slave Descendants Enough?
University officials described the decision as one step in a dialogue with the descendants, who are seeking $1 billion.
Joining
a wave of American institutions moving to offer a measure of
restitution for their ties to slavery, Georgetown University announced
on Tuesday that it would raise about $400,000 a year to benefit the
descendants of the 272 enslaved people who were sold to help keep the college afloat nearly two centuries ago, officials said.
The
university plans to use the money to support community projects such as
health clinics and schools. The announcement came six months after
Georgetown students voted in a nonbinding referendum to impose student fees that would have raised about $400,000 a year to support the descendants.
Georgetown
officials said students would play “a substantial role” in the new
initiative but would not be required to pay additional fees. The
university plans to seek voluntary contributions from alumni, faculty,
students and philanthropists.
“We
embrace the spirit of this student proposal,” wrote John J. DeGioia,
Georgetown’s president, in a letter to the university community, adding
that officials would “ensure that the initiative has resources
commensurate with, or exceeding the amount that would have been raised
annually through the student fee.”
Georgetown
officials described the decision as one step in a dialogue with the
descendants, who are seeking $1 billion for a foundation that would
finance educational, health, housing and other needs. Dr. DeGioia said
the university would continue to participate in those talks along with
the Jesuits, who established and ran Georgetown and organized a slave
sale in 1838 to help save the college from foundering.
Conversations about reparations for slavery have spread in just a few years from activist circles to college quads to the halls of Congress. Georgetown is the third institution to take such a step in the past two months. This month, Princeton Theological Seminary announced it would spend $27 million on scholarships and other initiatives to make amends for its ties to slavery.
In September, Virginia Theological Seminary, which relied on enslaved laborers, created a $1.7 million reparations fund. And last year, the Catholic sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart created a reparations fund to finance scholarships for African-Americans in Grand Coteau, La., where the nuns had owned about 150 black people.
At
Georgetown, college officials relied on Jesuit plantations in Maryland
to help finance the school’s operations, university officials said. The 1838 sale — worth about $3.3 million in today’s dollars — was organized by two of Georgetown’s early presidents, both Jesuit priests.
Dr.
DeGioia said the university would begin funding community programs in
2020 and described the new fund as part of the university’s efforts “to
respond to the question: How do we address now, in this moment, the
enduring and persistent legacies of slavery?”
But
Shepard Thomas, a descendant of an enslaved couple sold in 1838 and a
student leader who helped organize the spring referendum, criticized the
decision to raise the money through charitable contributions instead of
student fees.
On Wednesday, he and
other student leaders issued a statement saying that Georgetown’s plan
“delegitimizes and undermines student effort and the democratic vote of
the undergraduate student body" and “contains no clear criteria,
accountability measures or transparency with regards to construction or
implementation.”
In an interview, Mr.
Thomas said he feared that descendants would ultimately end up with less
financial support, and noted that the university’s plan would not allow
individual descendants to receive assistance with medical bills,
housing or scholarships.
“That isn’t sufficient,” he said.
Slavery and Scholarship
Read more about Georgetown’s 1838 sale.
Rachel
L. Swarns is a journalist and author who covers 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 about American universities and their ties to this painful
period of history. @rachelswarns • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 21 of the New York edition with the headline: Georgetown Offering Aid To Families Of 272 Slaves.
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