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A statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill in London.

U.S. protests push Europe to face its own histories of injustice

By News & Current Affairs

By Ishan Tharoor with Ruby Mellen, Washington Post — Edward Colston was a 17th-century English merchant who rose to the position of deputy governor of the Royal African Co. His family became fabulously wealthy as a result, profiting from the company’s role in the British trade of African slaves to the New World. Under Colston’s watch, about 84,000 Africans were shipped to lives of bondage and misery. An estimated 19,000 of them perished during the…

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Collection of Helena Rubinstein

A Letter to President Macron: Reparations Before Restitution

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

In the wake of initiatives to repatriate Africa’s stolen property, the author of this letter asks the French President to repair what his ancestors have broken, before attempting to restore the war trophies of colonial conquest. By Manthia Diawara, Hyperallergic — “All of the elements for a solution to the major problems of humanity existed at one time or another in European thought. But the Europeans did not act on…

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Liverpool

Liverpool street sign plan to highlight city’s slavery links

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

Liverpool could introduce plaques to give an “honest account” of places connected to the slave trade. By BBC News — Much of the city’s 18th Century wealth came from the trade involving British slavers transporting Africans across the Atlantic. Mayor Joe Anderson said paintings, street names and buildings in the city were “important parts of the historical record which should not be concealed”. He is calling for new signs to…

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The text was approved by 535 MEPs in a vote at the European parliament on Tuesday.

MEPs pass ‘watershed’ resolution calling for action against racism

By News & Current Affairs

Text calls on member states to tackle discrimination against people of African descent. By Jennifer Rankin, The Guardian — The European parliament has called for action to tackle the “structural racism” facing millions of Europeans of African descent in an unprecedented resolution that was overwhelmingly approved by MEPs. The resolution calls on European Union member states to develop national anti-racism strategies to deal with discrimination in education, health, housing, policing, the justice…

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Seventy percent of people of African descent stopped by police in Italy saw that action as racially-motivated.

People of African descent face ‘dire picture’ of racism in EU

By News & Current Affairs

Almost a third of people of African descent have experienced racial harassment in past five years, survey finds. By Jennifer Rankin, The Guardian — Almost a third of people of African descent polled in a new EU survey say they have experienced racial harassment in the last five years, a report that claims racial discrimination is “commonplace” across 12 European countries reveals. People of African descent face “a dire picture”…

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