For some, slavery is the past. For others, it bears considerable reflection here and now.
Let me give you a personal example. I welcome your thoughts. (Some of you may have already read about this in the New York Times.)
My Catholic parish in the Georgetown section of the District of Columbia is overseen by the Jesuit Province of Maryland (it has responsibility for Jesuit religious, parishes and schools from Pennsylvania to Georgia), which also oversees Georgetown University. Back when slavery was permissible even the Jesuits owned slaves to work on their Eastern Shore plantations. (Yes, it is despicable to me too and I have high regard for the Jesuits.) The plantations were failing and Georgetown, too, needed money to keep operating. The Jesuit province sold 272 slaves - largely to plantation owners in Louisiana where their fates were much worse than on the Eastern Shore plantations - to raise money for the school and province.
Now, thanks to researchers both at and outside of the university, Georgetown is recognizing that it needs to do something to atone for its grave mistake. (What seems to be the focus of news is the sale of the slaves but to me the ownership of the slaves in the first place is just as bad.)
Some recommend that Georgetown provide scholarships to descendants of the slaves (the researchers are tracing family trees where possible). (It should be noted that Georgetown probably does far better than most private universities in having a socioeconomically diverse campus.)
Closer to home for me, the very first recorded wedding that ever took place at my parish was to two slaves and they had to have permission of slave owners to wed. Blacks were required to sit in the balcony of the church - they later left the parish to form a separate congregation of Black Catholics elsewhere in Georgetown. As a parish, I think we need to reflect on our history (today, this is probably considered one of the most progressive Catholic parishes in the nation and not a soul would try to justify our forebearers). The issue isn't going to magically go away and it shouldn't. I don't have the answers but I think we need to somehow acknowledge our history, recognize that it was the furthest thing possible from Christian belief, and find a way to atone for our mistakes ... even if it is just finding a way to memorialize the mistakes of the past.