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Editors’ Choice

Slave Patrol

Slavery and the Origins of the American Police State

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

From the beginning, some Americans have been able to move more freely than others. By Ben Fountain, Medium — They were called patrollers or, variously, “paterollers,” “paddyrollers,” or “patterolls,” and they were meant to be part of the solution to Colonial America’s biggest problem, labor. Unlike Great Britain, which had a large, basically immobile peasant class that could be forced to work for subsistence wages, there weren’t enough cheap bodies…

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FBI agents walk past a memorial outside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh

Inside the White Supremacist Movement

By Editors' Choice

Michael German, a former federal agent, spent years infiltrating white supremacist groups. Here’s what he has to say about what’s going on now. By Joe Sexton, ProPublica — Late in 2017, ProPublica began writing about a California white supremacist group called the Rise Above Movement. Its members had been involved in violent clashes at rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, and several cities in California. They were proud of their violent handiwork,…

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Moderator of the panel Dr. Hilary Brown and panelists at the discussion on reparatory justice.

Reparations Not Just About Money – CARIFESTA Symposium

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By CARICOM Today — As part of the CARIFESTA Symposium entitled “Journey Round Myself”, a panel discussion on CARICOM Reparatory Justice was hosted at the UWI, St. Augustine on Thursday August 22, 2019. Panelists for the discussion included Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM Mr, David Commissiong, who gave the feature address; Mr. Dorbrene O’Marde, Chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Commission, Mr Ariyegoro Ome, Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago National Committee on…

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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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