What is the true impact of racial slavery in the United States today? Newly available archival sources and new technological methods create unprecedented possibilities for understanding America’s past, especially as it pertains to racial and ethnic groups that have been systematically excluded from traditional social and historical analyses. In 1838, Georgetown College (now University) sold more than 272 enslaved people (the GU272) “down river” to secure its financial health. The Georgetown Slavery Archive is beginning to bring to light, in unprecedented detail, how an entire community was transformed by slavery. As a national conversation about reparations takes root, the Social …