Georgetown University and the Jesuits are giving out reparations. The pledge is for $27 million dollars to the descendants of enslaved people who were sold to pay off debt at the university in the 19th century.
The fund is in partnership with the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation. The plan not only includes financial reparations, but also plantation land, according to CNN.
Around $10 million will come from Georgetown University and $17 million from the Jesuits. The funds are being dispersed in an effort to “take meaningful steps to address the harm done through centuries of slaveholding,” according to Monique Trusclair Maddox, CEO of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation.
Georgetown and the Jesuits have publicly apologized for their role in slavery. In the 2017 apology, Rev. Timothy Kesicki, S.J., president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, said “Today the Society of Jesus, who helped to establish Georgetown University and whose leaders enslaved and mercilessly sold your ancestors, stands before you to say that we have greatly sinned.”
This is just the first step in a long-term effort by Georgetown to pledge over $1 billion in reparations through the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation.