2021 Podcasts

Archives and Activism in the Classroom: An Overdue Conversation with Adam Rothman

Jones, Thai; Moe, Melina

In 1838, the Maryland Jesuits who operated Georgetown University, among numerous other concerns, conducted one of the largest sales of enslaved people in American history. Nearly 300 people were sold, mostly to plantations in Louisiana. The legacy of this tragedy has been at the center of Georgetown University politics for nearly a decade. Students, faculty, alumni, and descendants of the enslaved people sold in 1838 have all engaged in research, activism, and community building in the hopes of finding some meaningful form of reparative justice in response to this history. In this episode, we speak with Adam Rothman, a professor of history at Georgetown, who is a member of the university’s Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation, and also the principal curator of the Georgetown Slavery Archive.