2021 Podcasts

Archives as Spaces of Reckoning: An Overdue Conversation with Elsa Mendoza

Jones, Thai; Moe, Melina

Would knowing that reparations were enacted for slaveholders change the conversation around the feasibility of reparations today? Can archives be spaces of repair and reconciliation? This week we speak with Elsa Mendoza, historian at Middlebury College and former curator in the Georgetown Slavery Archives at Georgetown University about the role of archives in the debate about reparations on campus as well as how the space of the archive has been a place where historians and members of the descendent community meet. We speak with Mendoza about how students on the Georgetown campus used documents from the archive during the debate about reparations on campus, even replicating documents and posting them around campus. We also learn about how members of the descendent community visit the archive today, using documents to find information about their ancestors. Mendoza places the Georgetown and Maryland Province archives in the broader context of reckoning with the close ties between institutions of education and faith and enslavement.