Joseph M. Stewart, Acting President of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation and Co-chair of the GU272 Foundation Leadership Committee
Father Timothy J. Kesicki, President of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, delivers an apology to Descendants on behalf of the Society of Jesus during the Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition, and Hope at Georgetown University on April 18, 2017.
The founding partners share a commitment to truth, racial healing and transformation by and between the descendants of enslaved people and the Society of Jesus in the United States.
Our historic connection, born out of slavery, placed us on a path of oppression and human destruction. Yet we have chosen to diverge from a path that has, for centuries, undermined human potential and diminished the dignity of humanity.
Together, we are creating a new pathway that restores human dignity while ensuring and sustaining justice and equity. This partnership by descendants of enslaved people and those who enslaved them is the first partnership of its kind in the history of our country. In this uniqueness, we recognize our ability to move forward into a new and equitable world for all people of good will.
GU272 Descendants Association
The GU272 Descendants Association aspires to represent the greater common good of all descendants of Jesuit and Catholic slaveholding in the United States. To date, more than 10,000 descendants, living and deceased, have been identified.
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus, also known as Jesuits, is a Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers. In the early 1800s, the Society of Jesus financed Georgetown University through the operation of plantations in Maryland. It also generated a profit by selling slaves to slaveholders in Louisiana before this practice was banned by the Pope and recognized as immoral.