In 2016, I received an email that knocked me off my feet. It was a tip about Jesuit priests who sold 272 people in 1838 to save Georgetown University. This wasn't news to historians, but it it astounded me. Catholic priests participated in the slave trade? Why didn’t I know? 
Some might have asked: Was an 1838 slave sale even a story for the New York Times? I will be forever grateful to my editors @marclacey and @michaelluo for their support. I knew immediately that this was a story. What I didn’t know was where it would lead.
As journalists, we ask questions. We follow the records, the money. Sometimes the trail leads nowhere. Sometimes it takes you places you never imagined you’d go. 272 people were sold. I wanted to tell the story of one. So I followed the trail of an enslaved boy named Cornelius.
I followed Cornelius from a plantation in Md. to a plantation in La. I examined 19th century shipping manifests and mortgages and I realized that this was more than the story of one man selling another. Slavery had fueled the growth of universities, banks, and yes, our churches
So I wrote the story about Cornelius, the 272 and Georgetown, and I asked: “What, if anything, is owed to the descendants of slaves who were sold to help ensure the college’s survival?” nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/…
More than a million people read that story. Hundreds of people learned that their ancestors had been owned, bought and sold by Jesuit priests. Some wept. Some raged. Mostly, they organized. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Georgetown apologized and offered legacy status in admissions to the descendants of the people sold. The descendants formed associations and pressed for $1 billion. And I kept digging. I knew by then that it wasn’t just Georgetown. nytimes.com/2016/12/18/us/…
Some people might wonder why a journalist might spend so much time digging in the 19th century. It's because this history lives with us, reverberates in our times. It's because slavery was the engine that fueled the growth of so many of our contemporary institutions.
So I started to focus on the Catholic Church. @nyu_journalism hired me, giving me the opportunity to focus on this work. Sometimes, the trails you follow twist and turn. You dig in the archives. You care for your family. You pay your mortgage. Years pass. nytimes.com/2019/08/02/opi…
Three years after my first stories broke, Georgetown announced that it would raise $400,000 a year to benefit the descendants of the enslaved, becoming the first major university to take a stab at reparations. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. nytimes.com/2019/10/30/us/…
This week, I broke the story about the Jesuits' plan to raise $100 million to benefit the descendants of the people they owned and to support racial healing projects. It's the largest effort by the Catholic Church to atone for its role in slavery here. nytimes.com/2021/03/15/us/…
There's a reckoning happening. Virginia Theological Seminary created a reparations fund. Princeton Theological Seminary. Georgetown. The Episcopal dioceses of Md., NY, TX. The Jesuits. People will debate whether this is good or bad or enough. But the reckoning is real.
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