A civil rights attorney representing descendants of the enslaved Black people who built St. Louis University shared how cash payments are one way of recognizing the harm done by slavery.
Civil rights attorney Areva Martin spoke with Fox News Digital on Wednesday about recourse for descendants of slaves, claiming the institution owes these descendants cash payments for unpaid labor.
“It’s not that cash payments by themselves are enough. It’s that cash payments are one way to recognize the harm that was done,” Martin said.
On February 8, Martin and members of the Descendants of St. Louis University Enslaved announced the group calculated that they were owed up to $74 billion in unpaid labor for the construction of school.
Their press conference was part of an ongoing effort since 2019 to pressure the university to work with the descendants of the slaves in some way. However, Martin and her clients felt they were going in “circles.”
She said the lack of progress forced her to bring on economists and policy experts to drive the conversation forward. During the press conference, Martin explained that although the university acknowledged its ties to slavery, mere “acknowledgments” do not make her clients “whole.”
Economist Julianne Malveaux said, based on the “labor for 24 hours per day, 365 days per year for 70 enslaved people from 1823-1865,” she estimated that $365 million in unpaid labor is owed. Accounting for interest, the amount increases to $70 billion.
“You have to also ask yourself, how come these institutions, with all of their resources, never, ever utilized an economist, a statistician, a labor expert to tell us the value of the wages and the wealth that they accumulated,” Martin told Fox News Digital. “It just looks like this big gaping hole. So I think the question should be reframed: How come the universities aren’t sharing with the families the value of labor and the value of the wealth that they’ve accumulated?”
Martin sent a letter to St. Louis University President Fred Pestello, saying the institution needs to do more to redeem itself even though the institution has already “taken steps to recognize and memorialize its history through the Slavery, History, Memory, and Reconciliation Project (SHMRP.)”
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The SHMRP was a report issued in 2016 based on an investigation of the university’s ties to the institution of slavery.
Martin said the report revealed that Jesuits “forcefully relocated slaves from Maryland in 1823 to St. Louis specifically to exploit their stolen labor and skills to build St. Louis University.”
Martin told Fox News Digital the narrative regarding reparations also needs to change.
“People are always asking descendants or survivors, ‘Why do you want money?’ And I think the question should be the opposite. ‘How come you’re not coming to us with money?'” Martin said.
“When you think about the 9/11 victims or any victims of a disaster in this country, there’s never, ever a question about should we compensate them? That is a part of our civil, legal judicial system. You have a harm. Somebody else causes it. You are entitled to compensation,” Martin said.
Martin is representing over 200 descendants of Henrietta Mills and Charles Chauvin who are part of the Descendants of St. Louis University Enslaved.
Robin Proudie, a great-grandaughter of Mills, said at last week’s press conference, “We’re not asking for a handout.”
The Descendants of St. Louis University Enslaved was founded by Proudie, who started the organization after learning that Mills was born into slavery at the university in 1844 – information she discovered from original documents at the St. Louis University Archives.
“I think we have to change the narrative around this question,” Martin said about the debate surrounding reparations. “Oftentimes families or individuals who are seeking compensation are put on the defensive, as if they’ve done something wrong.”
The attorney argued that compensation for harm being done is “never, ever challenged except in those examples where Black folks are involved.”
She added that if someone worked for her and never got paid, they would have recourse.
“You would be able to go to a labor board. You’d be able to go into our courts and demand your labor be compensated. You’d be able to get penalties against me for not compensating you. You’d be able to get interest on those wages that I didn’t pay you,” she said.
Martin said this “isn’t, like, new to capitalism.”
“This is how our country is built. This is how we operate today,” Martin said.
St. Louis University (SLU) officials sent Fox News Digital a statement where they “acknowledge that progress on our efforts to reconcile with this shameful history has been slow, and we regret the hurt and frustration this has caused.”
“Continuing this work is a priority for SLU and the Society of Jesus. As we move forward, we hope to re-establish and build deeper relationships with all descendant families, to explore together how best to honor the memory of those who were enslaved by the Jesuits,” the statement continued.
Martin said that after meeting with university officials after the press conference, “they’re open to everything.”
“Our request in terms of compensation restitution is not the total amount that was calculated,” Martin said. “We calculated that amount because we felt like it needed to be a part of the conversation. It’s on the table. We’re not asking for $74 billion. We’re asking them to consider the value of that slave labor in the same way they are considering other aspects of their relationship with enslaved people.”
Martin said she hopes that descendants are put back on a committee regarding reconciling the campus’ past ties to slavery.
Other contributions the university could make are constructing monuments commemorating the slaves who built the university and curriculum changes to educate people about the “expansive work” that was done to study the school’s past ties to slavery.
When Fox News Digital reached out to SLU officials about how they would specifically implement recourse for descendants, they responded that “the University doesn’t have any further comment at this time.”
