Seminary Built on Slavery and Jim Crow Labor Has Begun Paying Reparations

The Virginia Theological Seminary is giving cash to descendants of Black Americans who were forced to work there. The program is among the first of its kind.

[Race affects our lives in countless ways. To read more stories on race from The New York Times, sign up here for our Race/Related newsletter.] One night in 1858, Carter Dowling, an enslaved Black man forced to work without pay at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Northern Virginia, made the brave decision to escape. He made it to Philadelphia, where he met the famed abolitionist William Still. He then continued north to Canada and, after the Civil War, returned to Washington, D.C., where he was able to open a bank account for his children. He eventually went on to work as a labor organizer in Buffalo.