Georgetown Prep announced the re-opening of a museum exhibit: Endowment of Tears, Hope for Reconciliation: Georgetown Prep and Slavery. The pop-up exhibit opened on February 3 and will run through the month of February in the Robert Southwell, S.J., in Boland Hall (Prep's main building).
Current and past parents, alumni, and friends of Prep are invited to visit the exhibit during the school day (8:15 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.). Simply check in with the receptionist in Boland Hall and then proceed to the exhibit.
The exhibit will also be open to the School community from 5:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 13 and Tuesday, February 25, and from Noon to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 22.
This exhibit was first presented in May of 2018 as part of Prep's Year of Reconciliation. It is being displayed again as part of Prep's continuing commitment to educate its students, especially freshmen and sophomores who were not at Prep during the 2018-2019 school year about the role that slavery played in Prep's history. The exhibit is based on documents and illustrations from the Booth Family Center for Special Collections at Georgetown University, the on-line Georgetown Slavery Archive, and the Georgetown Preparatory School Archives. It explores the crucial role that slavery played in establishing, maintaining, and, through the sale of 272 enslaved persons on farms owned by the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus in 1838, rescuing Georgetown College and its largest constituent element, the Preparatory Department from financial ruin.
The 272 slaves on the Maryland farms and those at Georgetown College constituted a living endowment: coerced benefactors of both Georgetown University and Georgetown Prep. The exhibit focuses on enslaved persons of the same age as current Prep students. It challenges the viewer to consider how best to seek reconciliation with the memory of the enslaved and with their descendants. A final segment of the exhibit highlights Prep's first African-American students, members of the Board of Trustees, and the late Headmaster and Past President, Jeffrey L. Jones, who played a trailblazing role in creating a more open, welcoming, and diverse Prep community.