Virginia Theological Seminary, outside Washington DC, was founded in 1823. It was built, and maintained, largely by Black laborers. Enslaved people and later, low paid workers in the time of segregation. Among them: the ancestors of Robert Strange.

Throughout the 1800s and into the 20th century, the seminary grew and prospered, but many of the Black workers struggled just to survive.

Now the seminary is trying to come to terms with its past. This past February they began making direct reparation payments to ancestors of the Black people who worked here. Robert Strange was one of the first recipients.

"It was not only the money that I felt good about. It was the idea they are saying, 'Hey, we owe y'all something. You know, it might not be a million dollars, but we owe you something,'" Strange said.

The decision to pay reparations came from Reverend Ian Markham, the Seminary’s White dean, and was supported by the school’s mostly white senior leadership.

Ebonee Davis is coordinating the reparation efforts.

"As a Black person that works at a predominantly white, traditionally white, institution that has a very strong history with slavery, unfortunately, I was shocked," Davis said.

Davis is conducting research in the Seminary’s archives, identifying people who worked here long ago and tracking down their living descendants, who the seminary calls shareholders. So far, 16 payments of about $2,100 dollars each have been made to 12 families. 

"There's no strings attached. We offer this money, and we extend our hand with the hopes that we will be able to build a relationship with the community and, and change what the, the standard kind of operating has been for the seminary and the local community," Davis said.

Researching the African Americans who labored here and tracking down their ancestors is a complicated, imperfect process but the officials here say it’s the right thing to do.

The seminary is one of the first institutions in the U.S. to pay direct reparations to descendants of enslaved people. The program could become a model for other institutions.

For Robert Strange, the payment is validation of the contributions his family made to this community.

"You can’t feel any other way, but happy and glad that somebody is trying to do something," Strange said.

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