THE DESCENDANTS TRUTH & RECONCILIATION FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES $27 MILLION IN NEW CONTRIBUTIONS: $10 MILLION FROM GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY AND $17 MILLION OF THE ESTIMATED VALUE OF JESUIT-OWNED PLANTATION LAND

The Contributions Represent a Significant Step Forward in Reaching the Jesuits’ First $100 Million Goal to Funding the Descendant-Jesuit Partnership Aimed at Mitigating the Impacts of Racism in America

BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation today announced $27 million in contributions to support the Foundation’s mission, which is to uplift future generations of Descendants of Jesuit enslavement while helping to create a world in which the false ideology of a human hierarchy value based on race no longer exists. The contributions include $10 million from Georgetown University, as well as $17 million from the Jesuits. This $17 million contribution from the Jesuits—which includes the estimated value of plantation land where many Descendants’ ancestors were enslaved, along with an additional $10 million—is in addition to the $15 million the Jesuits contributed when the Foundation was created. Georgetown previously provided a $1 million implementation grant to the Foundation.

The contributions announced today will add to the capitalization of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Trust, bringing the Trust total to $42 million. Earnings from the Trust will support programming in the Foundation’s three core focus areas: supporting the educational aspirations of Descendants from early childhood education through post-secondary education; investing in truth, racial healing and reconciliation in communities and organizations throughout America; and supporting elderly and infirm Descendants.

“These contributions from Georgetown University and the Jesuits are a clear indication of the role Jesuits and other institutions of higher education can play in supporting our mission to heal the wounds of racism in the United States, as well as a call to action for all of the Catholic Church to take meaningful steps to address the harm done through centuries of slaveholding,” said Monique Trusclair Maddox, a fourth- and fifth- generation Descendant as well as CEO of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation and Chair of the Board of Directors.

“When Descendants and Jesuits created our partnership, we shared the belief that a moral approach to truth, healing and reconciliation offers the greatest opportunity to uplift future generations of Descendants—dismantling the remnants of slavery while healing this nation of hate and racism,” said Joe Stewart, a fifth-generation Descendant as well as Chair Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation. “Continuing commitments such as these get us closer to reconciling this nation’s original sin and to healing the disease of racism in our nation.”

In July, the Foundation announced its first program, an educational advancement program in partnership with Thurgood Marshall College Fund to provide educational advancement opportunities to Descendants of Jesuit and Catholic slaveholding in the United States.

“The work of reconciliation—grounded in a deep reckoning with the pain and injustice of slavery and its legacies—is an expression of hope. The Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation has put forth an extraordinary vision to uplift Descendant communities, support the educational aspirations of Descendants, and promote racial healing in our nation,” said Georgetown President John J. DeGioia. “It is an honor for our University to have the opportunity to contribute to their efforts. The difficult truths of our past guide us in the urgent work of seeking and supporting reconciliation in our present and future.”

“As a Catholic community, it is imperative that we don’t turn away from our sinful history of slaveholding and instead look inward at how we can right past wrongs with justice, healing and compassion,” said Fr. Tim Kesicki, S.J., Chair of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Trust. “I am thrilled to see other Catholic and Jesuit institutions step up by investing in the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation’s mission to foster racial healing and uplift current and future Descendants.”

To learn more about the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation, visit www.descendants.org. 

About the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation
The Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation in partnership with the GU272 Descendants Association—representing 10,000 living and deceased descendants—and the Society of Jesus. The Foundation’s mission is to be and be perceived as a moral and intellectual leader in the pursuit of truth, racial healing and transformation toward a world in which the false ideology that human value can be rooted in pigmentation supremacy is jettisoned and replaced by a new and abiding reality of love and justice for all members of our one humanity. 

SOURCE Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation