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Freddie Jenkins’ mother attended what is now the last standing African American schoolhouse in Mount Pleasant, S.C., in the 1930s.

Slavery’s descendants say a reparations check won’t make the pain go away

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Tyrone Beason, Los Angeles Times — CHARLESTON, S.C. — Five years before the first shots of the Civil War rang out from the harbor here in 1861, alderman Thomas Ryan and a business partner opened Ryan’s Mart at No. 6 Chalmers St. Their merchandise was slaves: African men, women and children who were prodded, picked over and auctioned off to the highest bidders. The finest adult males could fetch…

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