June 23, 2016; Time Magazine
In 1838, Jesuit priests, running what is today known as Georgetown University, sold 272 slaves in a bid to raise money to save their fledgling school. These shackled men, women, and children spent the rest of their brutalized lives working plantations in Iberville and Ascension parishes in Louisiana.
Driving back to her hometown of Maringouin to visit a relative in February, Maxine Crump picked up her cell phone to answer a call. In that moment, her understanding of her family history changed forever.
The stranger on the other end had a question: Did the name Cornelius Hawkins mean anything to her? Crump, a former Baton Rouge television news anchor turned community activist, responded that the name Cornelius ha