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Truth, Healing and Reconciliation Initiative

Moving from Acknowledgment to Action

Saint Louis University is confronting its institutional history of slavery: building understanding of that history through teaching and research, strengthening relationships with descendants and community members, fostering honest reflection across the University, and taking concrete action to repair the harm. This work is carried forward through the University’s Truth, Healing and Reconciliation (THR) Initiative. 

SLU President Edward Feser acknowledged the University’s history of slavery in his November 2025 inaugural address: 

Like any human institution, what [Saint Louis University has] become has been shaped by both the achievements and the sins of our past.  

The same Society of Jesus that calls on men to abandon their worldly possessions and see God in everyone participated in the grave sin of slavery. The 12 Jesuits who journeyed here to establish the Missouri mission brought with them six enslaved people of African descent. The involuntary work of the enslaved — their cruel treatment — benefited Saint Louis University.  

This is our legacy. A noble mission on the one hand, and actions that were in shocking conflict with that mission on the other.  

We’re resolved to take steps toward repairing the harm that slavery and its legacy have caused. This is not only just, but consistent with a way of proceeding that is both fundamental to our Jesuit values and instructive in an America in which skepticism of core institutions is rising steeply.  

In examining our conscience as an institution, and inviting conversion toward truth, justice, and reconciliation, we name and repair what is harmful, we strengthen what is good and we choose a better path.

In January 2026, President Feser established THR as an institutional priority led by the Office of the President, moving the commitments in his address into sustained institutional work.  

History

A foundational understanding of Saint Louis University’s historical participation in slavery is grounded in the Society of Jesus’s Slavery, History, Memory and Reconciliation (SHMR) project, which was active from 2016 to 2021. SLU was a founding supporter and collaborator in the SHMR project. 

SHMR research documents how the forced labor of enslaved persons contributed to the founding of the Jesuits’ Missouri Mission, including Saint Louis College (later University). These men, women and children were separated from family members, forced to labor on behalf of the Society, subjected to abuse and housed in inhumane conditions. 

Letters, photos, and other documents also reveal how people enslaved by the Jesuits at Saint Louis University claimed their dignity and sought freedom for themselves and their families. 

Read about the history of slavery at SLU and the Jesuits’ Missouri Mission 

Learn more about the SHMR initiative and findings 

SLU’s THR work will continue to expand historical inquiry by partnering with historians who are deepening what is known about SLU’s history and by examining how that history is taught, documented, and memorialized across the institution.

SLU is also a member of Universities Studying Slavery (USS), a consortium dedicated to collaborative research and mutual support as participating colleges and universities seek to address their institutions’ histories of slavery.

Areas of Work

Truth, Healing and Reconciliation brings together work connected to SLU’s history, its relationships, and its responsibility to the future. Three areas of that work are described below. In each, the University is asking how what it learns through historical research, dialogue, and relationships should shape institutional decisions, educational experiences, community partnerships and remembrance. 

SLU and Slavery

Every SLU undergraduate is introduced to the University’s history of slavery through SLU’s core curriculum. Alongside that teaching, SLU will continue to examine and document its historical participation in slavery and the experiences of enslaved people connected to the University and the Jesuits, through historical and archival research, educational resources, and continued reflection on how this history should be remembered and acknowledged. 

Engagement with Descendants 

SLU is committed to building relationships with the descendants of people enslaved by the Jesuits and the University, and to creating meaningful opportunities for listening, dialogue, and shared learning. Through this work the University seeks to center the voices of descendants as they share stories about and honor their ancestors. 

Mill Creek Valley 

SLU’s Truth, Healing and Reconciliation work also includes engagement with the history and legacy of Mill Creek Valley, once one of St. Louis’ most significant Black communities. The neighborhood was demolished by the city during urban renewal efforts in the late 1950s, displacing thousands of Black residents. The University purchased part of the land, extending its campus east of Grand Boulevard into what was once the Mill Creek neighborhood.

Through research, storytelling, partnerships, oral histories and educational programming, the University seeks to contribute to the preservation and elevation of Mill Creek Valley’s history and the experiences of its former residents and their descendants.