The GU272 Memory Project Team

Valerie White

Valerie White, VP at Large, GU272 Descendants Association

Valerie White is Vice President at Large for the GU272 Descendants Association, and founder of The Campbell Family Group, a private organization comprised of descendants of Frank Campbell and Mary Jane Mahoney Campbell. She herself is a GU272 descendant from the Campbell line. Valerie has traveled throughout Louisiana with the GU272 Memory Project, helping to organize and interview many fellow descendants.

The primary mission of The Campbell Family is to locate and unite GU272 descendants of Frank and Mary Jane as well as Watt and Theresa Baney Campbell. Their separation from the family unit was the result of action by Jesuit priests to save Georgetown University from economic hardship in 1838. The organization is dedicated to restoring family connections in order to honor the legacies of our ancestors, and to empower future generations with the knowledge of their pedigree and the tenacity of a lineage of strength. 

Richard Cellini

Richard Cellini, Founder, The Georgetown Memory Project, Ltd.

Richard Cellini is the Founder & Secretary of the Georgetown Memory Project.  As Secretary, he serves as the GMP’s chief executive officer, and provides overall leadership and direction to the organization’s charitable mission and activities.  Richard founded the Georgetown Memory Project in November 2015.

The GMP is an independent, non-profit research institute based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, dedicated to investigating, documenting, and bearing witness to specific historical instances of university-sponsored slavery.  The GMP is currently working to identify approximately 300 enslaved people (known today as the “GU272”) sold by Georgetown University to southern Louisiana in 1838, and to locate their lineal descendants.  To date, the GMP has positively identified 215 of the GU272 Ancestors, and traced and verified 8,425 direct descendants (living and deceased).  Each month, the GMP identifies more than 200 additional GU272 descendants.  More than 4,000 GU272 descendants are alive today. 

Patricia Bayonne-Johnson
Patricia Bayonne-Johnson, the genealogist who first discovered the GU272 connection

Patricia Bayonne-Johnson, Genealogist

Patricia began a serious journey into her family history after retiring in 1996 from a career teaching biology to high school and college students.  She joined the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, enrolled in genealogy classes, attended conferences, made many trips to the Family History Center in Oakland and began to write stories about her family. It was Patricia's research into her family that revealed a connection to Maryland, and to Georgetown University's Jesuit priests.

Currently, she is active in her local genealogy society, the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society. She served as President of the Spokane Library from 2016-2019, and Vice President for many years after, and today volunteers in the genealogical section of the library.

GU272 descendant Lee Baker and oral historian Dr. Linda Mann
GU272 descendant Lee Baker sharing his story with oral historian Dr. Linda Mann

Dr. Linda J. Mann, Educational Policy Advocate

Linda J. Mann holds a Ph.D in Education Policy from George Mason University. Her scholarship focuses broadly on the history of U.S. education, with specializations in African American education policymaking during the historical periods of enslavement, Jim Crow, massive resistance and the resegregation of U.S. public schools. Her research explores restorative justice as a means to address the racial disparities that exist in the United States due to historically racist policymaking in education.

In addition to teaching secondary social science majors at George Mason University, Linda also works with the Georgetown Memory Project (GMP). Since 2015, the GMP has been deeply engaged in the work of systematically identifying and locating nearly 300 enslaved peoples sold by Georgetown University and the Maryland Jesuits to three sugar plantations in southern Louisiana in 1838 (known today as “the GU272”), and tracing their direct descendants. The success of this research has resulted in the unification of families torn apart 180 years ago. Currently, Linda is working on an oral history project to further document and preserve the stories of the GU272 and their descendants. 

Cynthia Satterfield

Cynthia Satterfield, GU272 Descendant

Cynthia Satterfield is a GU272 descendant from Sacramento, California. She has traveled with the GU272 Memory Project throughout California and Louisiana to help arrange and conduct interviews with other descendants.

Cynthia’s undergraduate work was in Language/Literature and Performing Arts.  She is a classically trained theatrical actress.  Cynthia earned a Doctorate degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and is a licensed acupuncturist in her state.  Not limited to performing or healing arts, her reputation in the world of visual arts is expanding.  Her PR participation has been requested by the Petrucci Family Foundation for an upcoming major Regional exhibition: Afro Cosmologies which opens at the venerable Wadsworth Atheneum in October 2019.  It will feature major works from the Wadsworth Atheneum Collection, the Amistad Center for Art & Culture Collection and approximately seventy works from PFF.

As a forty-five year member of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a grass-roots lay Buddhist organization, she adheres to a philosophy of peace that focus on self-transformation. It has been Cynthia's undeniable joy to learn and grow by volunteering in the GU272 community in ways that nurture trust, humanism, culture and education.