Mélisande Short-Colomb

Mélisande Short-Colomb, a descendant of the Mahoney and Queen families enslaved and then sold by the Society of Jesus in 1838 to ensure Georgetown’s solvency. began her relationship with Georgetown University in 2017 when, at age 63, she entered the College of Arts and Sciences as a freshman. From the start Meli found her Georgetown home in the Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics (The Lab), where she now works as Community Engagement Associate.

 Meli has written and performed the one person play Here I Am, under the direction of Lab Co-Director Derek Goldman, and backed by an eight-person artistic team. Here I Am weaves together narrative, music, and imagery, inviting the audience on an experiential journey exploring Colomb’s loving and complicated relationship with the institution that enslaved her ancestors. Interrogating uncomfortable truths, rather than offering easy answers, Here I Am challenges participants to bear witness and to reckon with their own histories, and to imagine the future of racial justice in America.

Meli serves on the Board of Advisors for the Georgetown Memory Project, the SSRC GU272 Selection Committee, is a founding Council Member of the GU272 Descendants Association, and was on the GU272 Advocacy Team. She was a leading voice in the student referendum on the $27.20 reconciliation fee, which passed with overwhelming student support on April 11, 2019. She received the 2019 Fr. Bunn Award for journalistic excellence for commentary in support of the “GU272 Referendum to Create a New Legacy.”

Meli is frequently invited to speak about the GU272 and reparations, and her story has been widely covered in the media. Her talks vary from testimony before the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, to speaking at the Brooklyn Historical Society, to a TEDx talk. Meli has been featured in print in outlets from the Washington Post and The New Yorker to the AARP Journal. News programs on all the major outlets have had stories on Meli, and she starred in a Full Frontal with Samantha Bee episode on reparations.

A native of New Orleans, LA, Mélisande retired from a lengthy culinary career, most recently as Chef Instructor for Langlois Culinary Crossroads, to relocate to Washington to attend Georgetown University. Her family includes four adult children and much-loved grandchildren, and scores of newly identified GU272 extended family members.