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Editors’ Choice

Kara Walker: What Do We Want History to Do to Us?

Kara Walker: What Do We Want History to Do to Us?

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Zadie Smith, NYREV — This essay appears in somewhat different form in the catalog of “Kara Walker: Hyundai Commission,” an exhibition at Tate Modern, London, October 2, 2019–April 5, 2020; the catalog is edited by Clara Kim and published by Tate Publishing. *** Two women are bound at the waist, tied to each other. One is a slim, white woman, in antebellum underskirt and corset. A Scarlett O’Hara type.…

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Reggae brothers … from left: Ky-Mani, Damian and Julian Marley perform at Marley 75 in Kingston, Jamaica.

Bob Marley at 75: how a ghetto reggae star rebranded Jamaica

By Editors' Choice

Seeing fans and family gather in Kingston to celebrate the late musician’s 75th birthday, music writer Vivien Goldman reflects on his indelible legacy. By Vivien Goldman, The Guardian — At 7am on 6 February, on what would have been Bob Marley’s 75th birthday, the abeng conch shell blows at his old home at uptown Kingston’s 56 Hope Road – now the Bob Marley museum – as it did in the days…

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Assembly line workers put final touches on 2018 Ford Expedition SUV at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Ky

African-Americans and the driving forces in the American auto industry

By Editors' Choice

By Herb Boyd — When Africans were forcibly brought to America, they worked at the points of production. And whether as a multitude of enslaved workers on small farms, large plantations, in mines or elsewhere, black laborers were vital cogs in creating wealth for their owners. On a national scale, enslaved black laborers provided a workforce vital for the development of the American republic by bringing wage-free economic success and…

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A Debt Unpaid: Attny Nkechi Taifa’s Speech on Reparations at Howard University School of Law

By Editors' Choice, NAARC News, Reparations, Video/Audio

January 30, 2020 — Attny. Nkechi Taifa, a NAARC commissioner, recently delivered a keynote address entitled “A Debt Unpaid” at the Howard University School of Law. Her reparations talk was hosted by Prof. Justin Hansford, executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard. Prof. Hansford is also a commissioner of the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC).

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Dr. Willie Wilson

Reparation Bill Becomes Real As it Heads to the House and Senate

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By TBT News — “Reparation Bill Becomes Real As it Heads to the House and Senate: My background as a former sharecropper from Louisiana who went through the hard knocks of life is the very reason I’m a passionate advocate of Reparations for African American people. My story is fully documented in The Wall Street Journal. “I believe in reparations for ALL citizens of African American descent in this country, but primarily (and to…

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For decades, structures such as Rosenwald schools were deemed insignificant.

The Fight to Preserve African-American History

By Editors' Choice

Activists and preservationists are changing the kinds of places that are protected—and what it means to preserve them. By Casey Cep, The New Yorker — No one knows what happened to Gabriel’s body. Born into slavery the year his country declared its freedom, he trained as a plantation blacksmith and was hired out to foundries in Richmond, Virginia, where he befriended other enslaved people. Together, they absorbed, from the revolutionary…

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