
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker — Cory Booker, one of a half-dozen Democrats routinely mentioned as a Presidential contender, is a man of singularly intense enthusiasms. He is a vegan…
Here you will find reparation news, articles and media posts
By Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker — Cory Booker, one of a half-dozen Democrats routinely mentioned as a Presidential contender, is a man of singularly intense enthusiasms. He is a vegan…
What a Danish slave trade castle in Accra revealed about Ghana’s history and my family. By Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Hampshire College — As a Ghanaian archaeologist, I have been conducting research at Christiansborg Castle in Accra, Ghana. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the castle is a former seventeenth century trading post, colonial Danish and British seat of government, and Office of the President of the Republic of Ghana. Today,…
How Staying Power shook British history. When it was published in 1984 Staying Power vividly captured the struggle for black British identity. Nearly 35 years on it still has lessons to teach. By Gary Younge, The Guardian — “The very serious function of racism is distraction,” Toni Morrison argued in a lecture in Portland, Oregon, in 1975: It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and…
The Danish government has officially apologized to Ghanaians for their country’s role in the dark history of slave trade in the then Gold Coast where millions of Africans were shipped…
We are profoundly thankful to Danny Glover for his support of the work of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) and the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC). As a tireless advocate for the U.N. Decade for People of African Descent and reparatory justice, Danny Glover has been with IBW every step of the way in our successful effort to intensify the U.S. and global reparations movements. We urgently need your support to continue this vital work.
Reparative justice, whereby communities are compensated for losses caused by the slavery or the Holocaust, is morally fair. By Julian Baggini, The Guardian — Justice requires a good memory, one that is both accurate and not self-servingly selective. But whether it is well-served by a long memory is more contentious. We know that many still pay the price for sins previous generations never paid for. But most agree with the…
By The Daily Observer — In a surprising bit of news, we learned that the the University of the West Indies (UWI) will receive £200 million in cash and kind from…
Scotland should take responsibility for the major and highly lucrative role it played in the transatlantic slave trade. By Elliot Ross, Al Jazeera — The late Jamaican-British intellectual Stuart Hall liked…
The Jamaica Gleaner — Vice Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI) Sir Hilary Beckles has reported that The University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom (UK) is planning to pay reparations for £200 million (approximately J$34 billion) taken from the Caribbean. According to Beckles, who recently returned from the UK, “The University of Glasgow has recognised that Jamaican slave owners had adopted the University of Glasgow as…
Image: A new statue (2015) of Frederick Douglass stands in Hornbake Plaza. Note: While most of us generally think about the profound activism and wisdom of Frederick Douglass being acknowledged…
By Thelá Thatch, Black Enterprise — Gentrification involves the transformation of under-invested, predominately poor communities from low value to high value. During this transformation, long-time residents and businesses are displaced; unable to afford higher rents, mortgages, and property taxes. For some, gentrification is a process of renovating deteriorated urban neighborhoods through the influx of more affluent residents. To others, gentrification magnifies the racial divide as it shifts a neighborhood’s racial…
By Christer Petley, Edited by Nigel Warburton, Aeona — It is no surprise that the whip is synonymous with New World slavery: its continual crack remained an audible threat to enslaved workers to keep at their work, reminding them that their lives and bodies were not their own, and that they should maintain (outwardly at least) a demeanour of dutiful subordination to their overlords. The whip was a cruel and effective instrument…